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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30093396">The Kids Are Alright</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereIsOnlyZuul/pseuds/ThereIsOnlyZuul'>ThereIsOnlyZuul</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crisis Core Era (Compilation of FFVII), F/M, Slow Burn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:55:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>35,536</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30093396</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereIsOnlyZuul/pseuds/ThereIsOnlyZuul</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cloud is back in his hometown with SOLDIERs Sephiroth and Zack to investigate the Nibelheim reactor. When Zack mentions that a girl named Tifa was asking after him, Cloud reveals how he feels about her, but that he can’t face her after his failure to join SOLDIER. Zack offers him a different option to hiding in his helmet: take the Buster Sword and fake being a SOLDIER. Will the plan bring him closer to Tifa? And will it do it fast enough to avoid the catastrophe brewing with Sephiroth? Crisis Core AU. Slow burn. COMPLETE.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Seven Days in (Seventh) Heaven</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I have been working on this fic for months now! This cute, fluffy little idea I had turned into a full AU and has eaten up so much of my free time! But it's been worth it because I'm really happy with what I was able to do with a blooming teenage romance between Cloud and Tifa (my OTP). Some notes before we begin:</p><p>1) The story has nothing to do with the FFVII companion novel about the Turks that was written by Kazushige Nojima despite sharing the same title. I actually didn't know such a novel existed until I was tagging this fic!<br/>2) The geography of my story doesn't match the official world map of FFVII. Nibelheim is much closer to Midgar for dramatic purposes at the end. It's probably not a huge deal to anyone but I felt the need to mention it!<br/>3) Some scenes have (possibly) excessive voice changes as I jump between Tifa, Cloud, and Zack and I do apologize, but also I don't. This is how the story needed to be told!</p><p>If you'd like to check out another Cloti fanfic in my catalogue I have an M-rated piece titled "Friday She's in Love", here's the URL if you're interested!<br/>- https://archiveofourown.org/works/23975824</p><p>Do comment if you enjoy and thanks so much for reading!<br/>Cheers!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Cloud had received orders for his next mission. A SOLDIER escort mission with two other MPs. He’d been ecstatic to see he was partnered to deploy with SOLDIER Zack and SOLDIER Sephiroth, one being a fast friend and the other being a long held hero. He was only a lowly MP, one of a million military police that could have been chosen, and yet he was the lucky one that would march alongside two of the best SOLDIERs in Shinra’s vast organization.</p><p>The orders had a timestamp and a location within the Shinra complex and Cloud arrived early. He stood with the other MPs eager to hear exactly where it was that they was headed. Zack stood casually near them with an easy smile on his handsome face. He didn’t know where they were headed either since he was the type of guy that would rather just be given the basics of his next mission than to read the hefty briefing SOLDIERs were given.</p><p>So he stood around talking to the infantry men, as in the dark as they were. He was in the middle of a dirty joke when the Cloud and the others snapped to attention: backs straight, eyes forward.</p><p>Sephiroth had arrived.</p><p>Zack stayed how he was, even pouting a little that his punchline had been so rudely interrupted. Not even the appearance of Sephiroth striding towards the small group made him straighten up.</p><p>“Hey Sephi,” Zack said with a mock salute.</p><p>“Zack,” Sephiroth returned without any real emotion in his voice as he inspected the MPs that would be accompanying him. His cold, blue eyes bore into Cloud like a drill. Sephiroth may have been polite and professional, well-spoken and graceful, and he was even especially humane compared to some of Shinra’s other SOLDIERs, but he was intimidating no matter the situation. And this was Cloud’s first time meeting him face to face.</p><p>Zack was a fairly young SOLDIER, and had only become a 1st Class SOLDIER a little while ago. Sephiroth had years of experience over him: Sephiroth was the star of Shinra’s SOLDIER program! But Zack wasn’t intimidated by him. Cloud wondered if there was anything on the planet that did intimidate Zack.</p><p>“Where are we headed?” Zack asked when it became obvious Sephiroth wasn’t going to say anything else.</p><p>“There are reactor problems in Nibelheim.”</p><p>The sound of shock that escaped Cloud was completely unconscious because he never would have broken formation around Sephiroth on purpose.</p><p>Yes, he’d been ecstatic to discover who he was working this mission with. But where he was working this mission was definitely a problem.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nibelheim.</p><p>It was a small town at the base of a mountain. There was nothing truly remarkable about it save for the thousands of twinkling stars that splashed across the sky as the sun set each day.</p><p>And that it was Cloud’s hometown.</p><p>He’d left two years beforehand with a bunch of big talk that he was going to be a SOLDIER. He’d been so completely full of himself. Turns out he had nothing to be full about. He’d failed the SOLDIER tests. Too ashamed to go back after his failure, Cloud had stayed with Shinra, taking a do-nothing and go-nowhere position with the military police. It wasn’t prestigious, or even particularly interesting, but it put gil in his pocket and kept him away from Nibelheim.</p><p>Until now that is.</p><p>Cloud was headed home.</p><p>“What’s wrong, kid? Hey, hello? Cloud?”</p><p>It was Zack talking to him, trying to get his attention. The calling of his name brought him out of the trance he’d apparently been in and back into the world of rattling train tracks and SOLDIERs.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“You’ve been staring at your own feet for half an hour,” Zack said with a laugh. “Something on your mind?”</p><p>“He’s no doubt thinking about returning home,” Sephiroth remarked from further back in the mostly empty train car.</p><p>“How did you know it’s my hometown?” Cloud asked, the surprise of Sephiroth knowing anything about him temporarily outweighing the intimidation.</p><p>"It’s all in your file,” Sephiroth replied in that calm and measured way he always spoke in. Was it boredom? Or neutrality?</p><p>“He always reads the files,” Zack said as he dropped to the seat beside Cloud. “He must not have anything else to do with his time.”</p><p>“I read the files because it’s protocol,” Sephiroth said in his disinterested way, but added with a small smirk, “And because I know how to read.”</p><p>“It hasn’t been proven that I can’t.”</p><p>“The way you write reports is all the proof I need.”</p><p>Cloud laughed, half from the comment and half from the fact that Sephiroth was bantering. He never would have guessed the man was capable of it. The other MPs snickered as well as they listened in from where they sat playing cards.</p><p>“Isn’t he funny when he gets going?” Zack laughed, apparently not caring the joke was at his expense. “But I have that effect on everyone.”</p><p>“Because you’re such a joke?” Cloud asked, realizing that the comment was serious insubordination but saying it anyways because why not? They were already heading back to Nibelheim, no better time to be dishonourably discharged from Shinra service.</p><p>The risk of the comment paid off, because not only did Zack laugh, so did Sephiroth.</p><p>“Wow, getting Sephi to laugh, you’re going to be the new golden boy around here,” Zack said with a semi-patronizing pat on Cloud’s head.</p><p>Yeah, he wished. If he were a golden boy to begin with, he would be one of the SOLDIERs assigned to this job instead of just a worthless grunt sent to protect them. As if a SOLDIER needed protection in the first place. Shinra troops that marched with SOLDIERs were usually just for crowd control when fans got too rowdy.</p><p>And they wouldn’t find many of those in Nibelheim. Not unless… no, she hadn’t really cared when he’d told her he was leaving to be a SOLDIER, why would she be waiting for him to reappear as one?</p><p>“You look worried again, kid.”</p><p>“Yeah… Maybe a little.”</p><p>“Not looking forward to seeing your family? Your old friends?”</p><p>“I only have my mom for family.”</p><p>“And friends?”</p><p>“Don’t have any. I’ve never been good at making them.”</p><p>That wasn’t entirely true. The girl next door to him had always tried to be his friend, he just hadn’t let her. In a misguided attempt of thinking that playing hard to get made him cool, he’d ignored her more often than not.</p><p>Except for the one time he hadn’t and they’d scaled Mount Nibel and she got hurt. Really hurt. Then he’d wanted to be her friend and make it up to her, and he hadn’t been allowed anymore.</p><p>Tifa Lockhart was her name.</p><p>She’d been the first person he told when he decided to leave and be a SOLDIER. And she might be waiting to see which SOLDIERs rolled into town because there might be a specific one she was waiting to see.</p><p>Was he kidding himself thinking she might want to see him again after the way he’d treated her? He knew he was. But then why had he bought a box of her favourite candy to bring with him?</p><p>“Well don’t worry too much about that,” Zack said, once again breaking Cloud away from his own dreary inner thoughts. “I’m great at making friends! Stick with me and make them by proxy! Right, Sephi?”</p><p>Sephiroth rolled his eyes. He might as well have implicitly called Zack over because that eye roll had Zack on his feet to argue about the sarcastic eye movement before Sephiroth had even finished it.</p><p>Cloud was glad to be left alone again. He had things to worry about. Namely, Tifa Lockhart and what she would think of the SOLDIERs that were arriving.</p><p>And the one that wasn’t.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It was late in the day when the train pulled into Nibelheim station and the Shinra contingent disembarked. Not a single soul milled around the small town centre. Cloud was glad there was no one around to see him. Even with his helmet covering his spiky blond hair he felt like he was as recognizable to the people here as Sephiroth was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No welcome wagon?” The disappointment in Zack’s voice was palpable. The idol-like aspect of SOLDIER had been a big draw for him: he wanted the attention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good. We’ll finish this faster,” Sephiroth commented as he surveyed the town around him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So no fun at all? That’s not fair, is it Cloud?” Zack dramatically clutched at Cloud’s shoulders, shaking him for added effect. Cloud shoved him away and was about to flip him off but Sephiroth turned to face him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I never said </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> couldn’t have fun. You’re free to spend our time here however you’d like. Go visit your mother, perhaps.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you sir,” he said with a salute, “but I’d rather not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth eyed Cloud. Was it approval for putting the job first behind the cold blue of his mako eyes? “As you wish,” he eventually replied as he turned to stride off, completely neutral as usual. Zack, on the other hand, had plenty of opinions on the matter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Doubly unfair! You get a free pass and you don’t take it? Now I’m actually going to have to work so I don’t look like I’m slacking off next to a grunt!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My sincerest apologies,” Cloud remarked as he strode after Sephiroth who had disappeared into the Nibelheim Inn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now, now,” Zack said as he caught up and threw his arm over Cloud’s shoulder. “Don’t think you’re getting away from me that easily. You and me are bunking together!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe I should go see my mother…” Cloud muttered as he brushed Zack off and disappeared into the inn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack was about to follow when his attention was drawn from the glowing entrance of the inn to a shadow lurking around the wooden legs of the town square water tower. He almost drew his sword to prepare for a fight, thinking maybe it was a wild mountain animal, but it wasn’t anything near that dangerous. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You shouldn’t sneak up on a SOLDIER,” he said with an easy smile as he turned to face the shadowed figure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a young girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. She had long, dark hair and big, brown eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re the SOLDIER that’s come for the reactor problem?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yup, name’s Zack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are there any other SOLDIERs with you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“War hero Sephiroth is here too. You want me to get you his autograph?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl shook her head. “Not interested.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You could have </span>
  <em>
    <span>my </span>
  </em>
  <span>autograph,” Zack said with a flirty smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl wasn’t interested in his flirting either and gave the remark no mind. “There’s no other SOLDIER with you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you looking for a specific one?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’d be sixteen. With blue eyes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We all have blue eyes,” Zack commented. “By-product of the mako upgrades.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“His eyes are naturally blue. They’re really nice. So is his blond hair.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blond hair and blue eyes on a sixteen year old boy? Was this girl talking about Cloud? Cloud was from this town, and hadn’t he mentioned something about wanting to be SOLDIER sometime before?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before Zack could further question the girl, someone called her name. “Tifa, I’ve got dinner, let’s go!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Coming Daddy!” The girl - Tifa - called over her shoulder. “Well, goodnight SOLDIER Zack. I’ll see you tomorrow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m your guide up the mountain. Best in town.” She turned on her heel and ran off towards her waiting father while Zack turned on his heel and rushed into the inn to see what Cloud would have to say about all this.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Zack burst into the room he and Cloud were sharing suddenly and with an urgency that made Cloud jump in surprise. Had he managed to find trouble in the small town in the five minutes he’d been left alone?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cloud!” He exclaimed with a big, happy smile on his face. “I found you!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not like I was hiding, Zack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No but I didn’t know which room was ours and I burst in on Sephi a second ago and I’m never going to hear the end of that!” Zack exclaimed as he entered the room and shut the door behind him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe you should learn to knock?” Cloud remarked with a roll of his blue eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Blue eyes!” Zack exclaimed with a point at Cloud. He remembered why he was so excited to begin with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Excuse me?” Cloud was as lost in this conversation as he’d ever been with Zack. And that was really saying something because Zack tended not to be able to finish a thought before starting a new one. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A real cute girl was asking about you just now, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Blue Eyes</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was not what Cloud expected Zack to be so eager about and his own eagerness at the revelation came bubbling to the surface. “Really?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack laughed, light and airy like he always did before he was about to lay into some heavy teasing. “You sound stoked, kid. Were you expecting girls to ask after you when you came back?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? No, of course not.” Cloud was clearly flustered, making his attempt at casualness just a beat later extra adorable. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh teenagers,” Zack said with a smile. “Only one thing on your minds.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t even read your own mind, what makes you think you can read mine?” Cloud shot back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Touché,” Zack chuckled as he dropped to his bed and began unlacing his boots. “I’m glad Sephi wasn’t around to hear that one, you’d be the new favourite for sure. You guys are two cold-hearted peas in a pod.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud dropped down onto his own bed. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and tried to look absolutely disinterested as he asked: “So, uh… What did this </span>
  <em>
    <span>girl </span>
  </em>
  <span>look like?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As if he needed to ask: he knew what she looked like.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Friendly brown eyes. Long dark hair.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack was definitely talking about Tifa. So she had been around waiting to see which SOLDIERs rolled into town. Was she disappointed that Cloud wasn’t among them?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wonder how old she is,” Zack continued as he threw his legs up on the bed and leaned back against the wooden headboard. “Do you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud thought about replying honestly for a brief moment before shaking his head no. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s too bad,” Zack said with a dramatic sigh “because she had these amazingly ample-” Zack had brought his hands up to his chest to mime what was so </span>
  <em>
    <span>amazingly ample </span>
  </em>
  <span>on Tifa. Pretty clear what he was describing. Cloud stopped him from saying anything gross by nailing him with one of the pillows off his bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s only fifteen! Stop talking about </span>
  <em>
    <span>those </span>
  </em>
  <span>and stay away from her!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I knew it!” Zack declared triumphantly. “That was all a clever ruse to get you to admit you know her!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You call that clever?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It worked didn’t it? I knew you’d know her!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, so what?” Cloud shrugged. “This is a small place.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who is she?” Zack asked, clearly not willing to drop the subject of Tifa Lockhart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Her name’s Tifa.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, that I know. She’s our guide up the mountain. Apparently she’s quite a pro at scaling it. What else?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know more about her now than I do. Or ever did.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Liar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack was so aggravating and Cloud let him know of that fact with another eye roll. “She was my next door neighbour. Her mom died when she was little so it’s just her and her dad. She was a total pest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well she’s cute as hell now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And </span>
  <em>
    <span>ample</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Cloud sneered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If only she was a little older-” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud got him with his other pillow. “Stop. Seriously.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you care? You said she was a pest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Doesn’t mean I hate her. Or want a weird old man checking her out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was the most insulting thing Cloud had ever said to him. Smart remarks about his intelligence he could take, but old? “Old? Unbelievably rude and untrue!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Old</span>
  </em>
  <span> to a fifteen year old girl. So back off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So protective of Miss Tifa. Big brother complex or… a crush?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud reached behind him for another pillow to hurl but he’d only had the two.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Out of ammo. Guess you better just answer the question.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud once again considered lying, but that hadn’t done anything to stop Zack’s questions up to this point. He was neck deep in it now, might as well totally submerge himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know if it’s either.” He replied quietly after a long, drawn out minute. “I mean, we were never really friends, but I was always trying to protect her. And the whole reason I left Nibelheim was to impress her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sounds like young love, kid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For someone I call a pest?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You would have just ignored her if you didn’t like her pestering you on some level.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, even if it is love, I haven’t seen her since I was fourteen. And probably never will again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll see her tomorrow when she takes us up the mountain!” If Zack had a tail, he’d be wagging it right about now. “You and her can catch up, and when Sephi and I go to do our official business, you can get down to your own business.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How many times do I have to tell you to stop saying stuff like that about her?” His face had gone hot from what Zack was implying, he knew he was blushing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Innocent business</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Better?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I’m not going to catch up with her. I’m not going to talk to her. She’s not even going to know it’s me because I’m not going to take my helmet off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t just hide behind your helmet!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For one, Shinra helmets are so ugly. Two, it’s a little cowardly, don’t you think?” </span>
  <span>Zack delivered the comment with his laid back smile, clearly meaning it as a joke, but it was anything but to Cloud. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are such an asshole!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped as he processed Cloud’s reaction. “Now, that couldn’t possibly be because I called the Shinra helmets ugly, so…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t need you calling me a coward when I already know I am! I left this town boasting that I was going to be a big hero. But I’m not and never will be! So I have to hide, okay? If I’m not a SOLDIER, I’m not anybody.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I can’t stand to think about what everyone is going to think of me now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you really worried about </span>
  <em>
    <span>everyone</span>
  </em>
  <span>, or just one person in particular?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud shot Zack a look, but he couldn’t deny what Zack was saying, so he stayed quiet, his eyes darting to anywhere in the unadorned inn room but his friend’s unfaltering gaze.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you know for sure how she’s going to feel about you not being a SOLDIER? Why don’t you just </span>
  <em>
    <span>talk </span>
  </em>
  <span>to her?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was Zack’s turn to roll his eyes. Teenagers. So dramatic. “Why? Because you’re not SOLDIER? So what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was so sure I was good enough. But then I wasn’t... I left this place so I wouldn’t be a nobody. Tifa deserves better than a nobody.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack furrowed his brow (a very uncommon expression on his usually smiling face) as he thought about what Cloud was saying. “You know, for a sixteen year old boy, you’re way too serious. I’m sure she’d just be happy to see an old friend.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I told you, we were never friends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bullshit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Believe what you want, Zack.” Cloud replied with a tired shrug. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll believe in what’s definitely the truth.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Which is what?”</span>
</p><p>
  
  <span>“That you’re in love with her and you always have been. But since you’ve got the emotional capabilities of a bean sprout, you don’t know how to show it. Or even admit it to yourself. So instead of just talking to her, you’re hiding behind your failure to get into SOLDIER like it’s an actual barrier and not one you’ve just made up. Am I right or am I right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud said nothing, which was all the affirmation that Zack needed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But don’t worry Bean Sprout, you can still grow up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not without SOLDIER.” Cloud said with a tired sigh to match his tired shrug.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well then,” Zack said with a sly smile. “You’ll just have to fake it till you make it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s that supposed to mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll tell you in the morning. Goodnight!” Zack pulled the cord of the bedside lamp that lit the small room, leaving the two of them smothered in the darkness of a small town with no buzzing neon to cast a constant glow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you’re not going to say another thing to me?” Cloud asked into the dark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I have my pillows back?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud scoffed and Zack giggled and that was that on Cloud’s first night back in Nibelheim. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Cloud awoke the next day with a feeling of dread heavy on his chest. They were headed up Mount Nibel with Tifa as their guide. He’d be in close proximity to her all day, hiding behind his Shinra helmet and praying that Zack didn’t give the whole game away with his big mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rise and shine!” The big mouth himself exclaimed as he noticed Cloud beginning to open his eyes. “Time to head up the mountain with your lady love!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please… please don’t start this early in the morning. Or,” Cloud grunted as he pushed himself up and out of bed, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>ever</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Don’t start that ever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry, I’m not going to blow your cover,” Zack replied as he tossed Cloud his helmet. “That’s not part of my big plan for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud had forgotten about this so-called plan of Zack’s during his night’s sleep, but it came back now with the mention of it. And the mischievous grin on Zack’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t start that either.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Too late! C’mon, I’ll tell you about it over breakfast. We’ve got a private room in the back to eat in so you won’t even have to wear your helmet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud sighed. Zack’s overbearing enthusiasm was so annoying. But at the same time, Cloud couldn’t help but be a little bit excited about what he could have planned.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>“You’ve got to be kidding.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? You don’t like my plan?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Plan is a strong word for what you want me to do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>plan </span>
  </em>
  <span>began as follows: Cloud borrows the Buster Sword and pretends to be a SOLDIER. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It also </span>
  <em>
    <span>ends</span>
  </em>
  <span> as follows. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was it: that was the plan. The plan he’d been so eager to share that he conspiratorially pulled Cloud to the far corner of their private dining room like it was life or death. This was what Cloud had missed out on one of the strawberry filled pastries for. He loved those strawberry pastries. They came from the bakery down the street. He used to beg his mother for one when they’d walk by the bakery, the strawberry pastries displayed right in the middle of all the other treats. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The “plan” was so not worth missing one of those strawberry pastries for. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I get some food now?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud stood without waiting for an answer and moved to the side table that held what was left of their breakfast selection. There were no sweet pastries left, only savoury. Cloud really did prefer sweet, but he grabbed one of the sausage rolls just to have eaten something. They were about to climb a mountain after all.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought it was a pretty good idea,” Zack huffed as he came up behind Cloud to survey the food himself. He also grabbed one of the sausages. Biting into the crispy puff pastry immediately covered him in flakey crumbs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really Zack,” Sephiroth remarked from behind him, seemingly summoned by the mess Zack was making. Zack embarrassing himself was like summoning spell materia for Sephiroth. “I can’t take you anywhere, can I?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope, especially not up a mountain,” Zack replied as he brushed off the crumbs but then took another bite of his breakfast and immediately put more on himself. “Guess I’ll just have to stay here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s a shame. There’s a very lovely young lady waiting outside for us that I would think you wouldn’t want to disappoint.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s Tifa,” Zack said with a knowing nudge into Cloud’s ribs. “I met her last night. She’s not interested,” he added with a sigh and shrug.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t you work quickly,” Sephiroth remarked. “Or perhaps that was the girl working quickly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud almost added to the thought that Tifa had never been one to tolerate what she didn’t like, but he didn’t need both SOLDIERs being a liability to his plan to hide in his helmet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Rude,” Zack punctuated the thought with a jab at Sephiroth’s chest with his half-eaten sausage roll.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We head out in five minutes,” Sephiroth said as he strode away, unruffled by the breakfast bludgeoning he’d just received from Zack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s going to kill you one of these days,” Cloud said with a smirk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack shrugged. “Yeah, probably. But not before we put my amazing plan into action!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It seemed like Zack’s death would be the only thing that would stop him talking about his plan. Maybe he’d fall off the mountain they were about to climb and Cloud wouldn’t have to hear it anymore. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wishful thinking. The man was agile as a cat. And had just as many lives.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The plan can’t go into effect yet though, so I hope you’re ready for a long, hot day in that helmet of yours. Unless you’re suddenly willing to just talk to Tifa?” It was clear which option Zack </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>wanted Cloud to choose, but him swallowing his pride and admitting defeat to Tifa was even more unlikely than what Zack was proposing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa hadn’t just been who he had </span>
  <em>
    <span>told </span>
  </em>
  <span>about joining SOLDIER. She was the whole reason he was joining SOLDIER </span>
  <em>
    <span>at all</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He couldn’t meet her again without a rank in SOLDIER: she’d hate him for sure if she saw him as a failure.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud crammed the rest of his breakfast into his mouth before cramming his head into his helmet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So that’s a no to just talking to her?” Zack asked with a sigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s just get this over with.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Teenagers.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The hike up Mount Nibel was excruciating. And not physically. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa led the way up with Zack sticking close to her so they could chat. Then the two other MPs, then Sephiroth, and finally Cloud, keeping as far back as possible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud couldn’t make out any of the words that Tifa and Zack were exchanging, but occasionally Tifa’s twinkling bell laugh caught on the wind and blew directly into his face. It should be Cloud up there talking to her and making her laugh. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yeah, he wished.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If only I was SOLDIER…” Cloud muttered under his breath, and not for the first time since they’d begun their ascent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you know our guide?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud startled at the sudden question and flat out panicked when he realized it was Sephiroth that was asking it. The SOLDIER superstar had fallen back to keep pace with Cloud and he hadn’t even noticed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um…” Cloud scrambled for an answer. Should he tell him the truth or lie? After a moment’s pause, Cloud decided on the truth. Sephiroth wouldn’t get involved like Zack was: Sephiroth wouldn’t care. “Yeah. Kind of. She was my next door neighbour.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you don’t wish to speak with her?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth cast him a look, his mako eyes surveying Cloud like they had last night after he’d declined Sephiroth’s offer to use this mission as a home visit. Was he curious why Cloud was so eager to be by himself in his hometown? If he was, he was polite enough to keep it to himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He said nothing else, leaving the only sounds to be heard the wind blowing down the mountain and Tifa’s laughter it sometimes collected along the way.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>“Here we are,” Tifa announced as the group arrived at the mako reactor. There was little fanfare to be had. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The reactor was the same grey as the mountain and the same design as every other Shinra reactor: absolutely abominable. They were such hideous constructs, like misshapen monsters rising from the lifestream, corrupted. Appropriate since they were the things corrupting it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks for bringing us up, Tifa,” Zack said with a big, bright smile on his face. He got to talk to a pretty girl all the way here, he was fully charged and ready for anything now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth was feeling less peppy though. “I’m not sure why we needed a guide to climb this mountain,” he remarked dryly as he mounted the stairs that would take him into the reactor. “The path has been well-worn, the incline gentle. And then when we get to the peak, I have to leave behind the extra hands I might need, to guard the guide from animals.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa became indignant at Sephiroth’s complete dismissal of her. “You know, I also have better things to do than hold your hand, but here I am without complaint. You could at least keep your thoughts about how you’re so much more important than me to yourself!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud bit his tongue to stop from laughing. The other MPs looked nervously between Tifa and Sephiroth while Zack looked absolutely ecstatic at this turn of events. Tifa didn’t even wait to see what Sephiroth would have to say to her outburst before she turned her back to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth said nothing in retort, he just continued up the stairs. “Zack, come with me. The rest of you, </span>
  <em>
    <span>guard </span>
  </em>
  <span>the young lady.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud and the other two saluted while Zack and Sephiroth climbed the stairs and disappeared into the reactor. Once they were out of sight, they dropped the formal stances and looked around for places to sit. The other two found a flat rock to sit around and use for a card table. Cloud took a seat on the metal stairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa took a seat on the metal stairs as well, two lower than Cloud. She leaned back and stared up at the sky. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was so close. It would be so easy to just take off his helmet and tap her on the shoulder and strike up the first earnest conversation they’d ever had.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“...Cloud…?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was once again startled out of a daydream. And by Tifa. She was looking right at him and had said his name. She’d figured out who he was? How had she done it?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well?” She asked when Cloud’s shocked silence stretched on for too long. “What do you think that </span>
  <em>
    <span>cloud </span>
  </em>
  <span>looks like?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pointed upwards and Cloud couldn’t help but follow its course to a fluffy cloud that was drifting by. Tifa was just cloud spotting, not </span>
  <em>
    <span>Cloud </span>
  </em>
  <span>spotting. A feeling of immense relief pumped out of his heart to replace the adrenaline of just a second ago. He could have cried from the feeling. Or laughed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If he was light-hearted and jovial like Zack, he’d whip off his helmet right then and there and say something witty, and then laugh along with Tifa at the happy surprise. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he wasn’t Zack. And he wasn’t a SOLDIER.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So he shrugged his shoulders and looked away from where Tifa was pointing and didn’t say a single thing to her, let alone take off his helmet and reveal who he was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t tell me you think I’m as lowly as that arrogant SOLDIER thinks I am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud turned back to look at Tifa. She was staring at him, a slight pout on her lips, her brow furrowed. It was the same look she used to give him as a kid when he ignored her when she asked him to play with her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, he didn’t think her lowly like Sephiroth did. He thought quite highly of her: he always had. Zack had been right about it being love, Cloud was sure of that now looking at her soft, round face and her pouty, pink lips and her expressive, beautiful eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wished he could say that to her. But he couldn’t. So he shook his head no to answer her question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She unfurrowed her brows and smiled a little. “Just shy, huh? Okay, I’ll do all the talking then. I think that cloud looks like a chocobo. And that one is definitely a Moogle. And that one…” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa went on, chattering away about anything and everything whenever the mood struck her. He’d wanted this just a short while ago. He’d wanted Tifa to talk to him instead of Zack. But he couldn’t say a single thing back to her. What twisted creature granted his wish with this twist?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The climb up had been excruciating, but the waiting around for the SOLDIERs to return was going to be so much worse.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Zack and Sephiroth were in the reactor until late in the afternoon, making the trek down the mountain in the setting sun much more periouless than the trek up. The two SOLDIERS were also very subdued after whatever it was they’d been doing. The attitude shift wasn’t obvious on Sephiroth, but it was clear as day on Zack. The chatty, bubbly man that had walked out front with Tifa going up, hung around the back of the group with Cloud going down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>More shocking than that, he hardly said a word. The proverbial cat seemed to have his tongue even despite Cloud’s prodding. He’d be lying if he said he wasn't curious what they had found in the reactor, but no topic seemed to be of interest to Zack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Home again,” Tifa remarked when they reached Nibelheim’s town centre. It was completely dark by the time they got back and everything along the main street was closed for the night. Not that everything on the main street being closed meant much, it was a small place, everything closed as soon as the sun set. “Are you going up again tomorrow?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The question was directed at Zack, but Sephiroth answered it before he could. “Zack will be. I’m going to look around the Shinra mansion on the outskirts of town.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What does that have to do with the reactor?” Zack asked in what was the longest string of words he’d put together since they began descending the mountain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shinra used to have business there. Which means I have business there.”  Sephiroth’s voice was measured and steady as he replied to Zack, but there was something innately threatening to it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something had put the SOLDIER in a bad mood. And even though Zack was willing to poke and prod at Sephiroth when he was in a good mood, he never risked it when he was in a bad one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Zack added nothing, Sephiroth strode off towards the inn without another word. The other two other MPs followed after him. Cloud went too, wanting very badly to take off his boots and sit down, but he did so slowly. Zack still stood with Tifa and he waited around to see why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks for taking us up there, Tifa.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was no problem for me. Why would I turn down Shinra’s money to climb it when I usually climb it for free?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack laughed then, though it was a tired laugh. “I better go get some sleep or I’ll never make it back up that mountain tomorrow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodnight, SOLDIER Zack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack opened his mouth to reply but a train whistle blowing far off in the distance made him pause. “When’s that train due to arrive?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thinking of hopping it so you don’t have to climb Mount Nibel again?” Tifa said with a teasing laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And miss out on the opportunity to have you all to myself tomorrow? I don’t think so.” The energy Tifa had given him had seemingly recharged his battery and his innate desire to flirt. Cloud rolled his eyes from where he stood in the shadows listening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Much like their first meeting though, Tifa wasn’t interested in Zack’s charm. “It’ll arrive at the same time yours did last night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good. I won’t have to wait around too long to brief the new guy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud’s ears perked up at that. There was a new guy coming in? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The same question was on Tifa’s mind. “A new guy?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, we called it in at the reactor. It’s a big job so they’re sending another SOLDIER.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another SOLDIER? Two wasn’t enough? Unless… no, there was no other SOLDIER coming in. Zack was just starting his self-proclaimed master plan. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Damnit, Zack…” Cloud muttered under his breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud had almost hoped that the exhausting day he’d had in the reactor had erased the stupid plan from his mind. Apparently not because he’d just planted the seeds of it in Tifa’s mind. Though he had conveniently forgotten that Cloud had never officially consented to be a part of the plan. Funny how Zack was like that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe it’ll be the SOLDIER you were looking for?” Zack asked with an innocent smile on his face. Tifa’s face broke out in a blush so deep that not even the shadows hid it. “Anyways, goodnight!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack patted her on the head like she was his kid sister and not essentially a stranger he’d met twenty-four hours ago, before casually walking away from her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And so it begins,” he said as he walked past where Cloud hid in the shadows. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re an asshole…” Cloud muttered as he trailed after him, suddenly a part of this plan whether he liked it or not.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>“You look great, kid!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?” Cloud was skeptical. The SOLDIER clothing on loan from Zack was just baggy enough to be noticeable and his sword was so heavy it threw off Cloud’s balance like crazy. He looked like a baby learning to walk when he strapped it to his back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Totally believable! And so suave! A handsome uniform like this, how’s she going to be able to resist you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was Zack complimenting his own clothing or complimenting Cloud?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know, Zack…” Cloud tugged at the collar of the shirt then wobbled again from the weight of the sword. If he stopped concretrating on keeping his balance with the sword for even a second, he wobbled. How was he ever supposed to trick Tifa into thinking that he carried this ostentatiously huge thing around for a living? “How is this sword so heavy? I won’t be able to carry it for long.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Trust me, kid, it’ll be fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It won’t be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure it will, why wouldn’t it be?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud opened his mouth to explain exactly why it wouldn’t be fine, but he’d been saying why it wouldn’t be fine for the last hour and Zack hadn’t paid him any mind then, so why should he now?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright, fine, the too heavy sword is fine. The too big clothing is fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then it’s all fine!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud could almost see the logic of that; he almost agreed until his anxiety caught his tongue. “No, it’s not fine. What do I do to… you know… get her to notice me now that I’m in this stupid outfit?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Stupid</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” Zack exclaimed, completely missing the question Cloud was asking and latching onto the mild insult that was at his expense. “I’ll have you know that’s a SOLDIER First Class uniform and you should ever be so lucky to wear one!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m wearing one now!” Cloud shouted back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack opened his mouth to retort but realized Cloud was technically correct.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So?” Cloud asked when Zack had stood around with his mouth open in complete confusion for a second too long. “What do I do now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go to her house and talk to her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Her dad can’t know I’m talking to her,” Cloud muttered as he turned away from the mirror to face Zack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because… because of something that happened when we were kids.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> was that Cloud hadn’t been able to protect her from a serious accident. Tifa had climbed Mount Nibel in search of her dead mother and Cloud had followed after her to keep her safe. But then he hadn’t, because she fell and ended up in a coma and her father had blamed him. Probably rightly. He’d been forbidden from being Tifa’s friend after that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Zack didn’t need to know the whole story. Cloud didn’t even like to think about the whole story. It made his stomach roil like he was about to be sick.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay…” Zack said it very slowly, clearly fighting his baser instinct to ask more prying questions. “So don’t knock on her front door. Do you know which window is her bedroom?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. It was right across from my bedroom window.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lucky boy!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Zack</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack threw up his hands. “Sorry, sorry. But look, you know which window is hers so just throw a couple rocks against it to get her attention.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And then what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a knock on the door then, two sharp raps cracking like thunder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’ll be Sephiroth,” Zack said with a sigh. “Even when he gets himself into a bad mood he still wants to do paperwork. Unbelievable. Gotta go, kid. Good luck!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But-” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack patted Cloud on the head, cutting off his thought. “Don’t worry, kid. Just do what I’d do!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He left then, off to do whatever SOLDIER work needed to be done. Cloud doubted it was something as simple as paperwork. The SOLDIERs were hiding something about what they’d found today, but there was nothing new about that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud watched the door close before he turned back to the mirror, more interested in his own secrets than the ones that SOLDIERS were keeping. Was he really going to go see Tifa? Could he possibly fool her if he did? What would she think of him if she figured out his trick? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If he stayed away, she’d never know about his failure. They could both just carry on the way they were now: Cloud with his shame that he’d failed, but Tifa with her hope that he hadn’t. What was worth the risk of upsetting that balance? What was he going to get out of this?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Her smile…” he smiled himself as he thought about hers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s what Cloud was going to get out of this. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it was well worth the risk.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The town was quiet as Cloud walked through it. After two years, he’d gotten used to the constant noise of the Shinra barracks and the city that surrounded them so much that the peace of his hometown was off-putting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Didn’t anyone in this town have things to do after the sun went down?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud realized the irony as he thought it, all he’d ever done after the sun went down was climb the water tower and stare up at the stars.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looked up now as he walked but the night was overcast, a thick layer of slate grey clouds blocking the millions of twinkling stars he’d spent so many nights wishing on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing to wish on tonight. A shame since he felt he really needed a little magic. He had decided to do what Zack had said and ‘just do what he’d do’. And what Zack would do would be to strut over to whatever he wanted with his total confidence and get it. So Cloud had decided to do that. He’d taken one last look at himself in the mirror before grabbing the candy he’d brought for Tifa and determinedly heading to where she was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But imitating confidence wasn’t the same as having it, and every step closer to Tifa’s house left more and more of his imitated confidence behind him like the boot imprints he was leaving in the dirt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Lockhart house came into view and Cloud stopped in his tracks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa’s house was a carbon copy of his own childhood home, though the window stutters were painted a different colour and the gardens were better kept than Cloud or his mother could ever keep theirs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The window to the right of the front door was lit up, the living room if Cloud remembered correctly from the one time he’d been in the Lockhart house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That one time had been after their ill-fated climb up Mount Nibel when he’d followed Tifa’s father into the house as he carried her unconscious body. That had been when Cloud had been told to stay away from Tifa forever, and when his undeserved reputation of trouble-maker had spread through the town. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud risked a peek through the lit up window. It was the living room and Tifa’s father was in it. The television was on and he was nodding off in front of it. His daughter wasn’t with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa’s room was on the other side of the house. That’s where she’d be, probably reading. Way back when, when she’d forget to close her curtains before the sun set and her lamp illuminated her room, Cloud could glance out his window and into hers and she’d always be reading.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa alone. Her father asleep. No one else in the house. No one around in the town. There would be no better time to seek Tifa out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud moved around to the left side of the house. There was an alley-like space between the Lockhart house and the Strife house, paved with cobblestones like it was meant to be a driveway but never used because it was too narrow to fit any kind of car. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A rectangle of light shone on the ground from a window on the second floor. Cloud came to a stop in that rectangle of light and looked up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa was in her room, he could see her shadow moving around behind her curtains. It was the same set of curtains she’d had since she was a kid, pale yellow and decorated with Chocobos. Much like her favourite candy, Cloud would never forget how much she adored Chocobo birds. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He glanced around his feet, finding a cobblestone that had broken into small pieces and scooped a couple of small rocks into his hand. Drawing back his arm, he began tossing them one at a time up at Tifa’s window. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Clink</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Clink</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Clink</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Three against the glass before her shadow stopped pacing and stood still to listen for the small noise.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Clink</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Clink</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Two more for her to discern where the noise was coming from. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Clink</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Her shadow moved towards the window.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Clink</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The curtain was drawn back.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Clink</span>
  </em>
  <span>. One more thrown right after she opened the curtain so she startled just a little when it </span>
  <em>
    <span>clinked </span>
  </em>
  <span>in front of her own eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She leaned closer to the glass, squinting down into the shadows between the two houses to see who it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>clinking </span>
  </em>
  <span>her attention. She was beautiful backlit by the soft light of the lamp that illuminated her room. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was even more beautiful when she smiled. Cloud had thought that every single time she’d done it today and he thought it again now as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she recognized who stood below. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa’s eyes lit up as she realized it was Cloud trying to get her attention. There was shock and surprise on her face but it quickly gave way to happiness as one of her irresistible smiles spread across her flawless face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She held up her hand to point downwards and mouthed something along the lines of “I’ll be right down” before she dashed away from her window.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That smile… she’d given it to him! It’s what he’d wanted all day long: it’s what he’d wanted for the last two years he’d been away. She was happy to see him! And… shouldn’t that have been a boon to his confidence, not a drain? He </span>
  <em>
    <span>should </span>
  </em>
  <span>be excited that she was rushing down to see him. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>should </span>
  </em>
  <span>be happy to see her turn the corner to come face to face with him, but…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But what little of his confidence he’d kept on the way here was suddenly gone, and there was nothing in him to replace it but guilt and anxiety. And Cloud just couldn’t cope.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Tifa emerged from her house, throwing open the backdoor with a bang, Cloud was already gone. In his instinctual response to anxiety to either fight or flee, he chose to flee. He dropped the box of candy and turned on his heel to rush away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cloud?” Tifa called out as her eyes adjusted to the dark. She expected to see his spiky blond hair and shining blue eyes, but saw neither. Cloud was gone. Where had he gone?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A colourful box on the ground where he’d been standing caught her eye, and she moved further into the alley to see what it was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a box of Mako Mounds. They were a sour gummy candy, perfectly round and coloured like mako. She had loved them as a kid but hadn’t been able to get them at the Nibelheim market for years. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tifa?” It was her father. He’d been half asleep on the couch all evening, her overly enthusiastic opening of the backdoor must have woken him up. “Where are you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just around the side of the house,” she called back as she scooped up the box of candy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you doing, honey?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing Daddy. I… I thought I heard somebody out here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But there’s nobody there?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa hugged the colourful box of candy to her chest. Cloud was back in Nibelheim! And he’d gotten her candy: candy that he’d brought all the way from Midgar. He’d been thinking of her while he was away!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But why had he run off just now?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No Daddy,” she said with a sigh, “there’s nobody here.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Cloud crashed back into his inn room in a flurry of visible anxiety and self-loathing. He was hoping to be alone to berate himself in peace but Zack was back from his SOLDIER business with Sephiroth and was lounging on the bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re back awfully quick, kid. Wasn’t she home?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, she was there,” Cloud muttered as he pulled off the too-big sword and leaned it against the wall like Zack himself had done last night. Dressing like a SOLDIER when he wasn’t one had felt bizarre, but for some reason taking the costume off felt worse. The make-believe was over and reality was rushing back in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What, didn’t she want to see you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The memory of her smile as she looked down at him flashed before his eyes again. “No, she did.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So why are you back? Do you need the inn room to yourself, hmm?” The question was delivered with a cheeky smile that would have embarrassed Cloud if he wasn’t already embarrassed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I… I ran off.” The truthful declaration hung between the two of them. It made his face burn with a blush.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I couldn’t see her… I got too nervous. I threw some rocks at her window and I thought it would be fine… until she came to look out of it and… and...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And what?” Zack exclaimed impatiently. “I’m sensing some issues here, kid. Did she scream? Flip you off? Start throwing rocks back at you? What? What happened?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud dropped to the edge of his bed, dropping his head into his hands as he did. “She smiled.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A smile scared you off?” Zack honestly couldn’t believe what he was hearing and it showed on his face. “So a girl you </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>to see smiles at you and you run off scared. How backwards do you live your life, Cloud?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why did Zack have to take everything at direct face value? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud brought his face up to glare at him. “I wasn’t scared off by a smile!” He snapped back. “The smile she gave me was completely perfect. She was happy to see me. But I got anxious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I didn’t think I was worth that smile she gave me. She was smiling at me because she thought I was SOLDIER but it’s just a trick, I’m not really. And then when she moved away from the window to come down and see me, I just... freaked out. I couldn’t deal!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you ran?” Zack said with a disappointed sigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So I ran.” Cloud responded with a disappointed sigh of his own. “I can’t believe I did,” he added with a shake of his head. “I’m such an idiot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, yes you are,” Zack said with a laugh. “But there’s still hope for you yet. You still want to see her?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud nodded his head. “More than I wanted to before. But after this? After I just dropped the box of candy I got for her and ran back here? Is she going to want to see </span>
  <em>
    <span>me </span>
  </em>
  <span>still?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait, wait, wait,” Zack said as he sat up. “You bought her candy? You little romantic, you!” He tussled Cloud’s hair and Cloud swatted him off. “What kind?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mako Mounds.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“An excellent choice,” Zack remarked as he thought back to the last time he’d had the sour and sweet treat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I brought that candy all the way from Midgar. They stopped selling it here when we were kids so I grabbed some before leaving. I remembered it was her favourite.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Holy shit, kid… You’ve got it bad for this girl! I can tell, this is the same trouble I went to for a girl that sells flowers in Sector 5. I built her a whole wagon! That’s what a woman wants.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A wagon?” Cloud asked with a dubious look on his face. “And you think I should build one for Tifa, do you?”  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I built a flower cart for her because I squished half her flowers falling onto them and I felt bad so I wanted to make it up to her. It was the thoughtful thing to do, just like your candy was.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>So </span>
  </em>
  <span>even though I almost ruined my flower girl’s livelihood by smashing up her flowers, she still wants to see me because I did something thoughtful for her. Tifa will feel the same way because of your candy even if you took off before seeing her tonight. You can go again tomorrow night and I bet she’ll be just as happy to see you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know, Zack...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“About her being happy to see you or about you seeing her?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me seeing her. I was already nervous to see her tonight, I’ll be even worse after what I did.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry about it, kid. You’re overthinking it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For sure! You’re way too serious for your own good. But it’ll be fine, I’ll talk you up to her, get her wanting you something fierce!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll have all day tomorrow to do it while you climb Mount Nibel,” Cloud commented as he pulled off his boots. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack fell back against his pillows with a loud and long groan. “For one blissful moment I forgot I had to </span>
  <em>
    <span>re-climb</span>
  </em>
  <span> a mountain!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Better get some sleep then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know, I was going to wait up for you till you got back tonight. Now that I’ve remembered what awaits me tomorrow, I’m glad you ran off before it got too late so I can get a good, long sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud ignored the tease as he stretched out in his own bed. “Goodnight, Zack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? Not going to throw your pillows at me tonight?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. No.” Cloud answered as he clicked off the lamp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I really want an extra one.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodnight, Zack.” Cloud repeated, hoping to put an end to Zack’s talking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t make me put you out like a cat,” Cloud launched back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack scoffed. “Such big talk from the boy that got scared by a smi-” Zack didn’t get to finish the comeback because a pillow slammed onto his face. “Thank you! Now, I wonder if I can convince you to get me a drink of water?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What if I ordered you to get it?” Zack’s giggles rang out of the darkness. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only their second night bunking together and Cloud was already sick of Zack’s routine. Cloud decided then and there that tomorrow he’d stay with Tifa for a good, long time. If for nothing else but to avoid Zack until he was already asleep.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Rain was pounding against the window when Cloud awoke the next morning. The overcast sky from last night had not blown north over Mount Nibel but had decided instead to wash out the small town at its base.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The door creaked and Cloud turned his head from the grey sky to the opening door. “Good, you’re awake!” Zack said as he entered the room. He had two plates balanced on his arm and a smile on his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I’m up,” Cloud muttered as he pushed himself into a sitting position.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Miserable day, huh?” Zack said with a nod towards the window.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Be glad it’s not snow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t jinx it, kid,” he said as he extended a plate to Cloud. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud took the offered plate but was disappointed to see that nothing Zack had brought up was sweet. Another day, another missed strawberry pastry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to climb a mountain in this, I don’t think I can jinx it any worse.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please stop reminding me that I have to climb that mountain again,” Zack said with a groan. “You’re so lucky you don’t have to go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like I have it any better,” Cloud commented as he bit into a piece of crispy bacon. “Sitting in that creepy mansion while Sephiroth prowls around will be nearly as thrilling as sitting around Mount Nibel.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good news there too, kid. You and the other MPs aren’t going with Sephiroth.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? Why not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sephi wants whatever he’s doing kept secret. So I’m taking the other two up with me and I’m giving you the day off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m just that benevolent. And now you can practice what you’re going to say to your lady love tonight undisturbed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud rolled his eyes but it honestly wasn’t the worst idea. Not that he’d say any of that to Zack of course. If he didn’t get any peace now, he’d have no hope of it after agreeing with the man.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>It rained all day, letting up only after Zack and the other Shinra guards had returned to the inn. The SOLDIER was soaked, his boots squishing from the water that had collected in them, his hair hanging limp and dripping onto his shoulder. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was shivering too, his teeth chattering loudly as he ditched his sword on the floor of their room and then retreated to a hot shower and hot meal. When he’d gotten both, he headed right to his bed to lay down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he was, once again, uncharacteristically quiet after his day investigating whatever it was that was happening at the reactor. Cloud had never seen him so drained of energy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud tried to get something out of him but his questions were waved off and played down. “You were right about it being boring,” Zack kept saying. “I wish I could have stayed here and watched television in bed all day like you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The SOLDIER was a bad liar. It was obvious it wasn’t just physical exhaustion that had him sprawled across his bed. But Cloud didn’t push him for answers: he wasn’t a pushy person. Zack could keep his secrets because Cloud had something of his own to keep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span> to keep was a date. He had spent all day debating with himself whether or not he should go and, in a rare moment of complete confidence (and completely unfaked confidence at that), he had decided he was going to go see Tifa again. And tonight he was going to stick around long enough to actually see her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m taking your sword again,” he said as he grabbed the suspender-like harness system needed to holster the weapon and began strapping it to himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Knock yourself out, kid,” Zack said with a yawn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was he really not going to add anything else? He’d spent how much time teasing and prodding and manipulating to get Cloud to this point and there was no comment to be made? Nothing sarcastic or inspiring? Not even a smug look?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing clever to say?” Cloud asked as he put the sword on his back and his hand on the doorknob.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My day was way too long for that. However,” he added with a tired but still obnoxiously cheeky smile, “I’m still going to wait up for you. If you do anything like last night, I’ll still get a solid night’s sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t count on it,” Cloud replied as he exited the room, throwing open the door to stride through and slamming it on his way out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack was pleased to see the confidence. Looked like he was rubbing off on the kid. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Atta boy, Cloud.”</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Cloud moved through Nibelheim on the same route he’d taken last night: the long way. The town was small, he could have been from the inn to Tifa’s in a minute if he’d stuck to the main street, but he didn’t want to risk anyone else in the town spotting him, so he stuck to the shadowy bits of the landscape.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The town was once again deserted though, so he really didn’t have to. The clouds that still hung low in the sky threatened more rain and kept the already night-shy people of the town to their warm, dry houses. Cloud arrived at Tifa’s house without seeing another living soul.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Moving down the alley between his house and Tifa’s, he scooped up some pebbles and got ready to throw them, but, unlike last night, tonight he was met with a dark window.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had Tifa already gone to bed? The way Zack looked after climbing Mount Nibel in the rain, he wouldn’t blame her for being exhausted. And if she were already asleep, Cloud should leave her alone. But how much longer was he going to be in Nibelheim? What if he only had tonight? Shouldn’t he wake her up for that?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He reared back his arm, ready to throw his stones and do just that, but before any of the small projectiles were launched, he changed his mind. He dropped his arm and then the stones. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just like he couldn’t pry into Zack’s SOLDIER business, he couldn’t bother Tifa during a moment of much needed peace.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The stones dropped from his hand, clinking against the cobblestone ground. He turned on his heel to once again retreat but a voice behind him made him stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cloud? Are you trying to leave without saying hello again?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stopped and turned. Standing at the end of the alley was Tifa Lockhart. The stones clinking against the cobblestone ground had called her attention to him like they had clinking against her window. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tifa, what are you doing down here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted to be nearby if you came here again. I didn’t have enough time to get down here last night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, sorry about that...” Cloud put his hand to the back of his neck, a nervous gesture he shared with his soft-spoken mother. He had forgotten there was a sword back there now and hit his fingers on the hilt. Thankfully it stayed where it was magnetically attached to the harness. The five foot sword clattering loudly to the ground probably would have made Cloud’s heart stop from the embarrassment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay,” Tifa said with a smile. “Zack told me you had things to do after you got in and only had a second free from Sephiroth. What class SOLDIER are you? A lower class than Sephiroth, right? Did you get in trouble with him for stopping by here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh yeah, that’s right, Cloud was pretending to be a SOLDIER. Standing just a few feet from Tifa had erased all other thoughts from his mind, even the very important one that he needed to remember to make his little deceit succeed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thought that he was about to start lying to Tifa made his stomach clench uncomfortably but her first set of questions could be answered without a lie. “Yeah, I’m a lower class than Sephiroth, but sooner or later everyone gets in shit with him, so whatever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa laughed and he absolutely melted at the sound of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well I’m glad you could come back tonight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me too…” A beat of silence passed as both of them thought of something else to say. Cloud got there first. “Did you find the candy I left?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh I did, thank you! I haven’t had Mako Mounds in years.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I remembered they were your favourite.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa laughed again, though this time it was a quiet, almost shy sounding laugh. Maybe it was her nervous gesture. “I can’t believe you remembered that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How could he forget? He remembered they were her favourite because she had told him they were. She had shared some with him when they were really little. The memory had always stuck with him as something that showed just how kind she was. What kid shares candy, let alone their favourite candy?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you stay longer tonight?” The question was asked shyly but Tifa took a few steps forward as she asked it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Cloud answered just as shyly, though added as a confident after thought: “if you want me too, Teef.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d like that,” Tifa answered with a smile so genuine, even the ever-pessimistic Cloud couldn’t doubt that she meant it.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Tifa had asked what Cloud wanted to do. It would have been easier to ask him the list of things he </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> want to do. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t want to stay around their houses in case Tifa’s father or Cloud’s mother appeared. He didn’t want to go to his old haunt the water tower in case anyone else in the town appeared. He didn’t want to go back to the inn because Zack was there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After running through every scenario in his head he offered a simple, if not uninspired, walk around the paths at the foot of Mount Nibel. Probably the worst suggestion given that Tifa had climbed that mountain twice in as many days; but she accepted the offer with a smile and they set off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was strange at first, being with Tifa. Stranger even than being back in Nibelheim in the first place. Cloud thought back to when they were kids and how mean he was to Tifa most of the time. He’d always had a superiority complex in this place, ignoring the other kids because he thought he was better than them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Especially Tifa. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d never been anything but nice to him but he mostly avoided her. If he couldn’t avoid her, he ignored her. If he couldn’t ignore her, he’d shove her down or pull her hair. Looking back on it now, he didn’t know why. He’d never really had a real reason to believe he was better than everyone else, but it’s how he’d lived his life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then the accident that had put Tifa in a week-long coma happened and his aloof reputation morphed into a trouble-maker reputation. He finally had a reason to think himself better than the town that was so wrongly judging him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he didn’t. Because seeing Tifa so injured had made him change his mind. He didn’t want to ignore people anymore; he wanted to shed his aloof reputation. He wanted friends.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Especially</span>
  </em>
  <span> Tifa.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he hadn't been able to get close to her after the accident: he had to keep avoiding her, but this time for reasons that weren’t his own. So he pined for her from the distance between their two bedrooms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Being back now and right beside her as they walked slowly along the dark trails was surreal in comparison to all the nights he’d glanced through her open curtains and wished she was closer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was really surprised to hear that another SOLDIER was coming in,” Tifa said after an appropriate amount of smalltalk had been accomplished. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was surprised too,” Cloud added with a small sound of derision as he remembered the shock of realizing what Zack had begun two nights ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We all heard that it was Sephiroth coming and assumed that was all. But then you get called in to assist. Which is very impressive, according to Zack. He said today that you were assigned with Sephiroth. He said that was quite the honour.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well he is a war hero.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess,” Tifa said with a dismissive shrug. “But you know I never really went in for SOLDIER hype. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Until</span>
  </em>
  <span> the boy next door became one, that is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nice save,” Cloud said with a laugh. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I’m sorry!” Tifa exclaimed with a look on her face that said she really was sorry. “I didn’t mean it that way!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud waved his hand like he was physically waving away the thought. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like there’s any wars currently happening. It’s hard to do much in SOLDIER without active combat.” He didn’t know that first-hand but Zack had bemoaned his boredom about the program on more than one occasion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So do you like the SOLDIER program? And Shinra? And Midgar?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um… yeah, I guess. Shinra pays pretty well. And Midgar always has stuff happening.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Different from Nibelheim, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, Midgar is something else. Can still get Mako Mounds for one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you’re trying to convince me to move to the city, you’re doing a good job. I could get my favourite candy again… We could be neighbours again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You wouldn’t want to live next to a Shinra compound, Teef. Way too loud. Way too tall. You’d never see the sun again. Or get a good night’s sleep.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe not </span>
  <em>
    <span>next door neighbours</span>
  </em>
  <span> then. But I would like to live in the city. It’s not like I need to stay in Nibelheim. Daddy would be sad to see me go but I can’t stay here forever... I could even leave with you.” She finished the thought with a sidelong glance to gauge Cloud’s reaction to the hypothetical situation. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa leaving Nibelheim and living in Midgar? There was a flutter in his chest at the thought. Unfortunately, it was mostly from fear. In Nibelheim, he could pretend to be a SOLDIER. In Midgar, he couldn’t. Pretending to be in SOLDIER right here and now with Tifa was the only way he’d worked up the nerve to talk to her. Going back to his lowly rank in Midgar would begin a whole new chapter of avoiding and ignoring Tifa. And this time around it wouldn’t be superiority that had him ignoring her, it would be shame.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not that she’d ever know that. It truly would be just like they were kids again as Cloud ignored her and she searched for the reason why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She deserved better than that.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think you’re better off where you are, Teef. I mean, they haven’t even finished building Midgar yet.” Despite that being true, he said it mostly because it was the nicest sounding option for him to turn Tifa down with.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It didn’t completely work. Even in the deep shadows of the night time trail Cloud saw Tifa take it personally. She puffed up like a cat when she got angry and she seemed a little puffy now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d still like to live in Midgar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Give it a few years, then it’ll be really impressive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But that means I’ll have to stay here till then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nibelheim isn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>bad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Tifa agreed with reluctance. “But Nibelheim isn’t where </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Cloud had been drinking something at that very moment, he would have choked on it. Even just breathing air at that very moment he felt like he could choke on it. Had Tifa just said </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>was the sole reason she wanted to be in Midgar? Had Tifa just revealed her whole heart? And did it really go so seamlessly with his own?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Damnit why couldn’t he have gotten into SOLDIER? Then he could take Tifa back with him like she wanted… like he wanted too. Instead he had to tell her no when he wanted so badly to tell her yes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he was at least going to make </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> rejection more charming than his last. Summoning up his best Zack level of confidence, he smiled as casually as he could and replied: “I might not be in Nibelheim </span>
  <em>
    <span>permanently</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but it’s where I am for a few more days. We can make the best of it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa still looked dubious and liable to puff up indignantly again at any moment. So Cloud did something he thought would quill her worries and make her happy: he took her hand in his as they continued on walking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A surprised sound sprang quietly to Tifa’s lips at the gesture, but she didn’t pull her hand away from his and didn’t say anything else about leaving Nibelheim. With Cloud’s warm fingers interlaced with her cool ones, she’d found something else to occupy her thoughts.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The walk didn’t last much longer after Cloud took Tifa’s hand because it began to rain again. It was a thin but steady mist that Cloud would have stayed out in but he didn’t want Tifa to be uncomfortable, so they ran back through the foothills of Mount Nibel, slipping on the increasingly muddy paths and laughing about it. Cloud’s side hurt from laughing so much and Tifa had to brush tears from the corners of her eyes when they finally skidded back into her backyard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Getting stuck in this rain was so much more fun than earlier,” Tifa giggled as she climbed the few steps to her back porch. She was breathing heavily from the running, her chest heaving as she did. Cloud’s eyes were drawn to what Zack had so casually described as </span>
  <em>
    <span>ample</span>
  </em>
  <span> but darted away just as quickly. Thankfully the back porch light she’d left on for herself wasn’t bright enough to illuminate the blush that had ignited over the bridge of his nose. Though Cloud stayed at the bottom of the porch steps just to make sure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you climbing Mount Nibel again tomorrow?” Cloud asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yup. Zack says there’s still work to do. He won’t tell me what it is though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did he at least let you into the reactor to get out of the rain today?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah but just into the front entrance seal, between the two blast doors. It was cramped with the two guards. Did the other guard go with you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The </span>
  <em>
    <span>other guard</span>
  </em>
  <span> was Cloud himself, so technically the answer was yes. “Uh, yeah, the other MP was with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The two that went with me and Zack let me play cards with them today. That other one wouldn’t even talk to me! Are all Shinra guards scared of teenage girls?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The blush on Cloud’s face burned hotter as Tifa unknowingly made fun of him. He deserved it, but it was still a jab to his pride.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Must have been a new recruit,” Cloud replied quietly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“At least Zack keeps it interesting. Are you going back to the mansion with Sephiroth tomorrow or up the mountain with Zack?” Tifa asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The look in her big, beautiful eyes was of hope that he’d say he was going to be with her. He would have loved to tell her yes but he just couldn’t. “No, I’m with Sephiroth.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No way to change that?” She batted her eyelashes and slightly pouted her lips. Tifa would be getting her way anytime she wanted with that look. That look made him want to say yes now and to hell with the consequences of tomorrow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No…” he eventually replied. The reluctance in his answer must have been clear in his voice because Tifa giggled at his reaction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, that’s too bad,” she said with a sigh that, much like her smile, was so genuine Cloud couldn’t doubt that she meant it. She was going to miss him tomorrow: what a lovely feeling that left in his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll come by again tomorrow night,” he said hurriedly, hoping to quell some of her disappointment.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You promise?” She asked again with the pout.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I promise.” Cloud returned with a smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can’t wait,” she said with a dreamy smile. “Goodnight, Cloud.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodnight, Teef.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She disappeared into her house with a quick backwards glance, the dreamy smile still on her face. Cloud no doubt had the exact same smile on his face as he walked back to the inn.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>The inn room was dark when Cloud tiptoed in but Zack had kept his word to wait up for him and the bedside lamp clicked on as the door creaked open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d be proud of you if I weren’t so tired,” the SOLDIER said with a yawn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No one told you to wait up for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who said I was waiting up for you? I was waiting up for my sword,” Zack shot back, though Cloud saw through the lie like he had all the other lies Zack had tried to tell today.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, it’s back now,” Cloud said as he unsnapped it from his back and leaned it against the wall. “So you’re free to go to sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But now I wanna hear about Tifa!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t kiss and tell,” Cloud replied and then immediately regretted his choice of saying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You two were kissing?” Zack exclaimed in what could only be described as a tizzy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s just an expression!” Cloud enunciated each syllable hoping to cut Zack off before he began. “We went for a walk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>And what</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aaaannnnnnddddddd…” Zack drew out the word until he was out of breath asking it. As he gasped in another breath of air, he looked disappointed to have been left hanging. “You’re gonna have to tell me more if you want my stellar advice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who says I want your advice?” Cloud sighed as he dropped to his bed to unlace his boots.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud continued, cutting Zack off as he did. “And who says your advice is </span>
  <em>
    <span>stellar</span>
  </em>
  <span>? You told me to build a wagon yesterday.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t take me out of context, kid! That was good advice for that circumstance.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m so sure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look, I waited up for you, all I want is some details about your night!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll tell you what happened-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>If</span>
  </em>
  <span> you tell me what’s up with this mission. Tifa says you’re climbing Mount Nibel again tomorrow. And I couldn’t help but notice that the door to Sephiroth’s room is wide open and he’s not in it. So is he still at the mansion? What’s in there? What are you two doing? What’s happening?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack sighed and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I can’t tell you what I’m doing, kid. Confidential to my class. And I can’t tell you what Sephiroth is doing either because even </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>don’t know what he’s doing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that why you’re so worried?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not worried.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zack, stop lying. You’re bad at it.” Zack sighed again, but he didn’t disagree. “Is there something bigger than predicted happening here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He answered almost at once. “Yeah.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it something dangerous?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This question was not answered as quickly. “Possibly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is the reactor safe to take Tifa to?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That question hung in the air twice as long as the last one before Zack replied. “Yeah... As long as she stays out of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>actual </span>
  </em>
  <span>reactor. I had to let her and the guards in today because of the rain and I was nervous about it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was not the answer Cloud wanted. “Zack-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was Zack’s turn to cut Cloud off. “Don’t worry about it, Cloud. I won’t let anything happen to her. I like her too much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack was being genuine, Cloud could tell as easily as he could tell with Tifa. He laid back onto his bed confident that the statement was absolutely true. “Thank you, Zack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack put two fingers to his forehead for a playful salute before clicking off the light. The darkness did not bring an end to the conversation though. “Alright kid, spill it. I answered your questions…</span>
  <em>
    <span> kind of</span>
  </em>
  <span> answered your questions: that warrants me a few answers about your date!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright, fine. What do you want to know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What were you doing besides </span>
  <em>
    <span>walking</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” The eyebrow raise was almost audible in the dark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We talked. About memories. The candy I got her. Midgar. And I held her hand.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud smiled at the memory from just a short while ago but Zack seemed less enthused at the news. “That’s it? I mean,” he quickly corrected when he heard the growl Cloud let out in the dark, “that’s a step in the right direction!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, thanks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When it comes down to it,” Zack continued, “it doesn’t matter what I think about your night; it matters what Tifa thought about your night. I’m sure she’s happy with it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thinking back to the dreamy smile that was on her lips when they’d parted ways, Cloud knew she’d been happy. And he couldn’t wait to make her happy again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You going out again tomorrow night?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They both already knew the answer was yes, there was no reason for Cloud to say it out loud.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Night four in Nibelheim came and Cloud was eager to get to Tifa’s house. It had been another day of hanging around the inn by himself as Zack and the other two guards climbed Mount Nibel and Sephiroth prowled around the Shinra mansion by himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But boredom hadn’t been the only reason Cloud had wanted to get to Tifa. What Zack had said last night about what was happening here had been sitting on the edge of Cloud’s mind all day. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something </span>
  <em>
    <span>bigger</span>
  </em>
  <span> than expected was happening in Nibelheim.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something bigger </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> more dangerous. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something that </span>
  <em>
    <span>could</span>
  </em>
  <span> put Tifa at risk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Zack had her leading him up Mount Nibel despite that. It made Cloud more than a little nervous. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The tiny rocks he’d scooped up along his walk to Tifa’s house plinked against her lit up window. One seemed to stick to the window before it fell away: had he thrown it hard enough to chip the glass? Maybe he was more on edge than the situation really called for, but he was shaken at the thought of Nibelheim not being the boring, but completely safe little town that he’d known it to be as a child.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The light in Tifa’s room went out without her pale yellow Chocobo curtains opening to investigate the sound. Tifa knew who it was trying to get her attention. A clink meant Cloud. And she wanted to see Cloud again as much as he wanted to see her. She appeared around the corner of the house faster than a heartbeat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cloud!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tifa!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They exclaimed each other’s names at the same time: Tifa with joy, Cloud with worry.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, how was it today? Going up Mount Nibel I mean?” Cloud asked as she strode towards him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Umm, fine,” she said as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Why wouldn’t it have been?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud opened his mouth to respond, to tell her that something was up in Nibelheim, but Zack had sworn him to secrecy. “It’s… nothing. Never mind.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Worried about me and Zack?” Tifa asked with a teasing lilt to her voice. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That old man?” Cloud scoffed playfully back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Isn’t he only twenty-three?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course Zack had found a way to work his age into some conversation he’d been having with Tifa. Ever the intolerable flirt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, and that twenty-three year old is going to crumble into dust if you lead him up Mount Nibel one more time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So that’s why I’ve got tomorrow off, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you?” That was news to Cloud. As far as he knew, Zack was still headed up the mountain again tomorrow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yup, and I’ll be glad for the rest. I don’t usually climb that thing so many times in a row.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud was glad for the news that Tifa wasn’t going back. If she stayed away from the reactor and whatever Zack had found in it, she’d be safe. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are we going for another walk in the foothills?” Tifa asked when Cloud was too lost in his own thoughts to say anything out loud.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a nicer night for a walk: not a cloud in the sky to rain on them. But Cloud still felt wary about Mount Nibel. They wouldn’t be anywhere close to the reactor but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the whole mountain was a danger. He felt the same desire to protect her now as he did when they were kids and she’d tried climbing it in search of her dead mother’s spirit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I actually thought somewhere else tonight,” Cloud said as he turned away and began to walk towards the town centre.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh yeah? Where?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud turned back and held out his hand. “Come with me and find out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa didn’t hesitate to take Cloud’s outstretched hand and the two set off.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>There not being a single cloud in the night sky had given Cloud another idea about what it was a nice night to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The water tower,” Tifa had chuckled as she mounted the ladder to climb up it. “It hasn’t been the same since you left.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No one else climbs it?” Cloud grabbed the rungs to hoist himself up after Tifa. She was in a skirt though, something he realized with a brief upwards glance, so he dropped back down to let her finish climbing before he went up after her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sometimes I do,” Tifa said as she reached the top. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only sometimes?” Cloud had climbed the rickety wooden water tower anytime he could. Gripping the rough rungs of the ladder in his hand as he climbed it again was a sensation he hadn’t realized he’d missed so much. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was always your place.” Tifa said with a sad sort of smile as he reached the top of the ladder. “It just doesn’t feel right to be here without you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well,” Cloud said with a blush from Tifa’s kind words, “I’m here now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sentiment was an exceedingly simple one but it took the sadness from Tifa’s smile.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>The stars were beautiful. They always were on a clear night in Nibelheim. The millions of twinkling pinpricks of lights splashed across the sky with the turquoise band of some far off nebula breaking up the black and giving the whole sky a glow like mako.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it true you can’t see stars in big cities?” Tifa asked after Cloud had ditched the sword to sit and they’d settled with their legs hanging over the edge of the water tower’s platform.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, it’s awful. You can only see the biggest ones. That one there is always visible though.” Cloud pointed with his right hand at the huge one that was almost directly overhead them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not like Cloud needed to point out what star he was talking about. The biggest star in the sky was unmissable. Pointing to it was just a convenient excuse to put his hand on top of Tifa’s when he brought his own back down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He glanced out of the corner of his eye as he did it and was pleased to see the corner of her mouth turn up in a smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So only a few stars to gaze up at? Sounds lonely.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lonely?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, don’t you get lonely when you can’t see the stars? I do. It’s like I’m trapped in a box with a lid and I’ll never get out of it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’d hate being under the plates at Midgar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Under the plates?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Midgar is built above the ground on plates but people that can’t afford to live topside have started to move under the plates. Whole cities of slums have sprung up. Hardly any sunlight, and definitely no stars.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Depressing,” Tifa said with a grimace. “I’d hate to end up in a place like that.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve heard if you squint your eyes that the lights on the underside of the plates kinda look like stars,” Cloud said with a laugh as he laid on his back to get a clearer picture of the actually star speckled sky. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How long until you go back to the starless Midgar?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s taking you guys so long to fix the reactor? I asked Zack earlier and he played dumb.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not an act,” Cloud laughed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Seriously Cloud, what’s happening with Shinra’s stuff here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So reminiscent of the questions he’d been asking Zack himself. He’d gotten no answers from the SOLDIER either. “Honestly Teef, I have no idea. Zack isn’t totally sure either.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And Sephiroth?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud had almost forgotten about the SOLDIER super star. Since he’d decided that the Shinra mansion needed to be investigated, he hadn’t left it. It was getting creepy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sephiroth is on to… </span>
  <em>
    <span>something</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Something big?” Tifa asked. “Something dangerous?” She added when Cloud didn’t answer. The darting eye contact Cloud made at the mention of danger answered her second question. “Really?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t tell anyone this, but… yeah. There’s a possibility something dangerous is happening.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud had always been a serious person with a stoic approach to everything and melancholy just behind his blue eyes. But there was an added seriousness to what he’d just said, Tifa could tell by the way his brow furrowed as he spoke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wow. Tiny little Nibelheim might be dangerous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud didn’t want to worry Tifa so he reiterated his thought. “Only </span>
  <em>
    <span>might </span>
  </em>
  <span>be. What are the chances of it being anything but boring?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa made a thoughtful noise at the back of her throat as she thought about what Cloud was saying. After a silent moment passed, she asked: “Do you remember the promise you made me before you left Nibelheim?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was talking about the last time they’d been on the water tower together: the night before Cloud had left town to go be a SOLIDER. He’d invited her up with the big news he was leaving. He’d done it to impress her. And because he hadn’t wanted to leave without getting to say goodbye. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Way back then he’d wanted to say so much more than that. He wanted to explain why he was always avoiding and ignoring her, he wanted to say how sorry he was for not saving her on Mount Nibel when they were kids. Most of all he’d wanted to tell her how pretty she was and how he was going to miss hearing her voice drifting from her room and into his on warm summer nights when their windows were open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she’d arrived at the water tower, all he’d been able to spit out was that he was leaving to be a SOLDIER. Tifa had spoken though. She’d asked him to make a promise to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I promised to always save you if you were in trouble.” He remembered the promise as clearly as he remembered the teal coloured sundress she’d had on that night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s right,” Tifa said with a smile, clearly pleased that Cloud still remembered. “So if whatever’s happening here turns out to be dangerous, you have to keep your promise, okay?” Tifa had been sitting up beside where Cloud had sprawled on his back but she leaned back as she spoke. She was propped up on her elbow, her face close to his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa’s voice was quiet but teasing as she spoke about the promise he’d made. Cloud didn’t take the promise lightly though: he definitely didn’t think of it as a joke. He’d been trying to protect Tifa since they were kids. He’d failed then and she’d ended up in a coma, but he’d vowed to himself after that to always protect her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s why when she’d asked for that promise two years ago, Cloud hadn’t hesitated to say yes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to keep that promise no matter what, Tifa,” he said with a conviction that asserted to the universe it was the only path he was destined to always stay on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A blush spread across her cheeks as Cloud reaffirmed the promise. It had been a silly, spur of the moment comment Tifa had made just to keep Cloud talking to her. It was impetuous - nearly impossible to execute, but Cloud had agreed to it then, and here he was, two years later and reassuring her that he was prepared to fulfill it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you, Cloud,” she murmured with a smile. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa was blushing ever so slightly, Cloud could see the colour of it on her cheeks. He wanted to reach out and put his hand to her face. When she looked away briefly to hide her blush and a lock of hair fell away from where she had tucked it behind her ear, Cloud saw his chance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Reaching out, he took it gently between his fingers and put it behind her ear again. The blush had spread to the tips of her ears, he could feel the heat of it on his fingertips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she looked back to him, it was shyly through her thick, dark eyelashes. Tifa had always been shy. Maybe not as much as him, and maybe not even shy: maybe more demure than anything. She wasn’t boisterous about what she wanted, she never took what wasn’t offered to her. Cloud would have to initiate what her eyes said she wanted right now: a kiss.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sat up, intending to lean over her and put his hand on her chin to guide her shyly smiling lips to his own. It was going to be romantic under all the stars the universe had to offer them. A kiss to remember.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the best laid plans often go awry. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just as Cloud began to lean in, voices sounded nearby. Voices he recognized. It was the other Shinra MPs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are we on messenger duty?” One of them asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And where’s the other kid?” The second guard grunted. “Like hell he’s been with Sephiroth this whole time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zack probably gave him time off.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What, this is his hometown so he gets to slack off?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were talking about business. And not just Shinra’s. Cloud’s was in there too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Some hometown. What’s up with this place?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve got no idea. Did you see the note that Sephiroth sent Zack earlier?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa had been listening to the conversation too. “What are they-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just seconds ago Cloud had wanted Tifa’s lips against his own, but now instead he put his finger against them to signal for quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zack hid it away pretty fast.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah I would’ve too! It was a bunch of weird looking equations and chemicals and shit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“From Sephiroth?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah! And it must mean something to Zack because he went pale when he saw that note.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve never seen one SOLDIER scared of another!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right? They’ve all lost their damn minds!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uh-huh. And I’ll tell you another thing,” the two other guards were beyond the water tower now, almost out of ear shot, but Cloud heard one more thing before they were out of reach. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>If</span>
  </em>
  <span> the kid has been with Sephiroth, we’re probably gonna end up pulling his corpse out of there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A long and silent moment passed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What was all that about?” Tifa asked quietly. “Is there really something wrong with Sephiroth?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Umm… ” Cloud stalled for time as he let the implications of their conversation stew in his mind. There was no answer Cloud could give Tifa, but Zack could give Cloud answers: he was going to demand them after hearing what the other guards had to say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cloud?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His train of thought was broken by Tifa quietly calling his name. He looked to see her beautiful brown eyes staring at him, gauging his reaction. Maybe even wondering if he was still going to kiss her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shit…” the curse came out as a mumble as he realized the time for carefree kisses had passed. “I gotta go, Teef. Zack has some intel he hasn’t shared when he should have.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The look that passed over her face was a crestfallen one. She’d wanted Cloud to kiss her as badly as he had wanted to kiss her. But she understood. If what the guards had been gossiping about was true, something bad was happening in Nibelheim. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud stood and moved quickly to grab the sword he had taken off to be able to sit. She watched him attach it to his back in one fluid movement before he began lowering himself down the ladder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa sat up to watch him descend. “Not even going to say goodbye?” She called out with the teasing lilt to her voice. “You’re not still that mean, are you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud had only descended a few rungs, and when Tifa called out to tease him again, he stopped completely. She was right: he was being mean. He reclimbed the ladder and leaned in to say his goodbyes with the kiss they both wanted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When his lips met hers, even though it was just for a second, she made the same quiet noise of delight she had made when he’d taken her hand during their walk in the foothills.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Pulling away from the kiss felt horrible: he should stay and kiss her under the stars until the sun came up. But he had a promise to keep to her and it looked like he might have to keep it before he left town again. So there wasn’t any time for kissing right now, despite how much it pained Cloud to think that to himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodnight, Tifa,” he said with a grin he thought was suave but was properly just goofy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodnight, Cloud,” Tifa replied with a goofy grin of her own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud slid down the ladder, landing with a harder thump than he’d meant to because he’d been thinking about the kiss and not where the ladder came to an end. He looked back up at Tifa who had leaned forward to look down. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So badly he wanted to kiss her again…</span>
</p><p>
  <span> There was no time for kissing tonight, but who said there wouldn’t be tomorrow?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll see you tomorrow night, okay Teef?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her reply was an instantaneous and enthusiastic nod yes. He wasn’t the only one that wanted more kisses than tonight had afforded. The thought put a smile on his face and not even the thought of all the secrets the SOLDIERs were keeping could dampen it.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Cloud awoke the next morning to a note atop Zack’s already made bed. The SOLDIER had been asleep when he’d come in last night, or at least pretending to be asleep so he didn’t have to answer any of Cloud’s questions. Now he’d run off before Cloud was awake and the note didn’t clear anything up. It just said what Cloud already knew: Zack was headed up the mountain again but Tifa wasn’t going with him. He must have figured after how worried Cloud had been that some reassurances were in order. The note also said that whatever was happening in Nibelheim would be wrapped up by tomorrow night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wished Zack would just give him some straight answers. Though he supposed being told the definitive date of when they’d be done here was an answer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The note also told Cloud to tell the other MPs that they had the day off, but when he went to their room, they were nowhere to be found.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud sat on the edge of his bed, staring out the window, thinking about Nibelheim. Working his way backwards through what he knew he tried to piece together what was happening in his hometown. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knew Zack was freaked out about Sephiroth. He knew Sephiroth was locked away in the Shinra mansion acting weird. He knew Sephiroth only started acting weird after the first day at the reactor. He knew that two first-class SOLDIERs were sent to investigate a reactor instead of the Engineer Corps. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So… it was the reactor, it had to be. But that much was already known: why else would they have been sent here if there wasn’t something wrong with it? </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What exactly</span>
  </em>
  <span> was wrong with the reactor was still the question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Cloud couldn’t begin to imagine what was wrong with it. So he let his mind drift to other things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Namely Tifa.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And if they would be done here tomorrow night like Zack had said in the note, then tonight would be his last time seeing her until… maybe ever. The likely prospect of never seeing her again left a hollowness in his chest like his heart had been scooped out. It was worse than the feeling when he’d left two years ago. There’d been hope then that he’d see her again. But not now. They’d go their separate ways tomorrow night...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He tried not to think about that. He instead kept the thought of her soft lips pressed against his at the front of his mind. It was a lovely distraction.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Zack returned just after sundown, and though he tried to keep up the show of positivity, it was clear how haggard this mission was making him. Shadows under his eyes, patchy stubble along his jaw which was clenched tightly as he smiled at Cloud in a show of trying to hide how exhausted he was. The show was not successful. Grimace might be a better word to describe what spread across his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey kid,” he said with a groan as he dropped to his bed. He didn’t even bother to take his boots off before throwing his legs up onto the mattress. “Hope your day was better than mine. You’d think that mountain would get easier to climb but it gets harder.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zack-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack cut him off. “I can’t believe Tifa does that for fun.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zack-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack cut him off again. “I got halfway up today and-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud cut Zack off this time with a shout. He’d told himself that he was going to demand some answers and he was! “Zack, I want to know what’s happening here!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack’s mako infused blue eyes met Cloud’s natural blue eyes with something of disbelief in them. “Excuse me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell me what’s happening.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you not with that?” Zack said with an impatient sounding sigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to know!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>to know, do you? Well tough shit! It’s above your class, Cloud! I know you’ve been make-believing you’re a SOLDIER, but have you forgotten you’re not actually one?” Zack snapped back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was not the response Cloud was expecting. Zack never got impatient or snippy or lost his temper. He didn’t yell, he didn’t rage. There wasn’t a single thing on the planet that angered him, from back-talking subordinates, to mocking him to his face, to mosquito bites: nothing got to Zack Fair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing but Nibelheim, that was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Zack saw the look that passed over Cloud’s face, he sighed and lightened up, though he didn’t try to hide how tired he was this time. “Sorry, Cloud. I didn’t mean that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Which part?” Cloud asked as he stood to pace in front of the beds. “The part about me not being a SOLDIER or the part where you say you’re not going to talk about what’s happening here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack saw he wasn’t getting out of what he so desperately wanted to get out of and decided to just give in and go along with it. “How much do you already know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know Sephiroth has locked himself away in the old Shinra mansion and he’s sending you weird notes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How’d you know that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The other guards were talking about it last night. They walked under the water tower while Tifa and I were on it. They also said you were freaked out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to kick their asses for gossiping,” Zack grumbled as he scratched at the scruff along his jaw. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good luck finding them. They haven’t been here all day. I don’t know where they are.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That bit of news had Zack furrowing his brow in concern. “They’re not here?” The question was muttered to himself, Cloud didn’t bother to acknowledge the SOLDIER had even said anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So here’s what I know,” he said with a huff. “Sephiroth is prowling around the mansion and sending you notes that freak you out. You’re climbing a mountain every day to prowl around the reactor that is clearly having issues beyond regular maintenance. And two of the three MPs you arrived with are MIA after being sent out last night!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay…” Zack said with a long exhale. “So you know quite a lot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know anything, Zack! Tell me what’s happening!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hate to disappoint you kid, but I don’t know what’s happening either. Not all of it anyways.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well what do you know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their eyes met again and Cloud could tell the SOLDIER was considering not saying anything. It was classified information and Shinra kept their classified information very close to their chest. If Zack was ever caught passing the information out to those not in the need-to-know circle, a dishonourable discharge from the SOLDIER program would be the best case scenario. Disappearing off the face of the planet like some SOLDIERs had been known to do was a much more likely outcome. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay. Listen. I… I can’t tell you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zack-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, kid, I know. It sucks and you hate not knowing and you’re worried, but I can’t tell you what I’ve found out. I </span>
  <em>
    <span>can</span>
  </em>
  <span> tell you,” Zack added hastily when Cloud opened his mouth to keep bitching about his circumstances, “that nothing bad is going to happen. Okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud knew that Zack believed that. He was a little less optimistic than the SOLDIER. The eye roll communicated that to Zack pretty clearly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just trust me, okay Cloud? Please?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sincerity in his eyes sold the confidence and Cloud relented. “Yeah, okay. You are a First Class SOLDIER, I guess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And don’t you forget it!” Zack said with a genuine smile that had him looking much more like himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t let it go to your head,” Cloud said with another eye roll, though a more jovial one this time. “I only said </span>
  <em>
    <span>I guess</span>
  </em>
  <span> you’re a SOLDIER.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A technicality that slipped past the higher ups,” Zack said with a yawn. “Now, are you going to see Tifa again?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that really the only thing on your mind right now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> the only thing on </span>
  <em>
    <span>your </span>
  </em>
  <span>mind right now?” Zack shot back. “I’ll save your pride from having to admit I’m right and just send you on your way, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud opened his mouth for a snarky retort but decided against it. Zack was having a hard time here but he was trying to shield Cloud from it. He was a good friend even if he was being a pain in the ass SOLDIER at the same time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks Zack.” Cloud made a move towards the door and the sword that sold his SOLDIER illusion. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, kid?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Leave the sword, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you going back out?” Cloud had to ask, he knew he wouldn’t get any specifics but he had to ask. Zack was already sprawled on his bed, looking likely to pass out any second now, why would he go back out?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shinra mansion is just calling my name,” he replied with a sigh. Another look of worry passed over Cloud’s face so another reassurance was needed. “Something much more desirable is calling your name though, so don’t let me keep you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yup! Now go on, go make the best of your night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud thought he would hesitate, would stay and try and convince Zack that he should help. But his night was already planned and he dashed out the door without a look back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Teenagers. Only one damn thing on their minds,” Zack said to himself as he sat back up and prepared to leave himself. “That’s my boy,” he added with a smile.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>As Cloud turned the corner of the Lockhart house he saw that Tifa’s window was lit up with her curtains wide open. Cloud was coming by later tonight than he had other nights, maybe Tifa had thrown open the curtains to look out and see if he was coming at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thought that Tifa might be impatient to see him again had him smiling as he stooped to scoop some pebbles into this hand. He pulled back his arm to start throwing them but decided instead on something a little more impetuous. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was a drain pipe right beside her window that Cloud had always fantasized about climbing up to knock on her window and sneak into her room. Unencumbered by Zack’s five foot sword and emboldened by the dreamy look she’d had on her face when he’d left her last night, he decided that tonight the fantasy was coming true.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Grabbing the drain pipe, he shook it to make sure it wasn’t going to collapse halfway up it before he began his ascent. When he was level with Tifa’s second story window, he leaned over to peek through her window. Only at the last moment did he realize how bad this would look if she were undressing, but thankfully she was just on her bed with her nose in a book.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud rapped on the glass with his knuckles. Tifa was expecting the sound but she gasped at the sight of Cloud’s face smiling at her through the glass. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cloud?” She exclaimed as she threw open the window. “What are you doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just thought I’d drop by,” he said with the most casual pose he could strike considering he was balancing half his body weight on one elbow, on a windowsill twenty feet above the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll be dropping somewhere if you keep this up,” she said with a laugh that was half mirthful, half worried.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you inviting me in?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, please, before you fall!” Tifa said as she moved out of the way, ushering Cloud through the window with a sweeping gesture of her arm. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud’s entrance into Tifa’s bedroom was a lot less graceful than he was hoping for as it turned into something more like a slither than the clean pull-up-and-through he was hoping for. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa covered her mouth with her hand in a bid to stop him seeing how much enjoyment she was getting out of his struggle but Cloud honestly didn’t mind being laughed at right now: he was still in the room of the most beautiful girl he knew. And he’d soon be kissing the lips that were currently giggling at his expense, so fair trade as far as he was concerned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud thumped to the ground and Tifa burst out laughing before she could stop herself. Before Cloud could climb to his feet and smoother the laughter with a kiss, they were interrupted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tifa?” It was Tifa’s father calling from the bottom of the stairs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Y-yes, Daddy?” Tifa called back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What was that noise, honey?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her father was climbing the stairs: he sounded closer than he had before. Too close. At least for Cloud’s comfort. Cloud couldn’t be caught in Tifa’s bedroom and they both seemed to be thinking it because he jumped to his feet and she pointed towards her closet. Just as he ducked inside the nearly full closet and pulled the door closed, Tifa’s father was knocking at her bedroom door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa threw a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure Cloud was concealed before she opened her bedroom door. Her closet door was made of slates and his lithe form was just barely visible. As long as her father didn’t want to come into her room, it would be fine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What was that thump?” He asked as she opened her door just enough for him to see her room was just like the last time he’d seen it and that she definitely </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t </span>
  </em>
  <span>harbouring a SOLDIER in her closet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um… It was me, Daddy.” Tifa mumbled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened? And what’s with the blush?” The tone of his voice could have been playful under different circumstances but Cloud thought that it sounded like suspicion under </span>
  <em>
    <span>these </span>
  </em>
  <span>circumstances.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s, um… I… stood to open my window because I was warm and… slipped on a book I left on the ground... and fell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The lie hung in the air for a beat before being met with a laugh. “Really Tifa, you and your books! You tripped over one you left in the living room just the other day!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud smiled in the dark of the closet. So her cover for </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>clumsy entrance wasn’t a complete fabrication. A lie with a bit of credibility behind it would stick better. And the mental image of Tifa so caught up in one book that she tripped over another was precious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, Daddy,” Tifa grumbled, the blush on her cheeks now there, not because she had a boy hidden in her closet, but because her father was teasing her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Try not to break your neck crossing the three feet from here to your bed, okay?” Her father laughed as he patted her on the head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Daddy!” Tifa huffed, brushing his hand away in annoyance. Cloud smiled at that too, it reminded him of how Zack teased him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa closed the door and her father’s laughter continued down the hall as he walked away. But he was walking away, so despite Tifa’s embarrassment, he was none the wiser of the situation and Cloud was free to stay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You want me to stay in here until your blush goes away?” Cloud called out softly through the slates of the closet door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa scoffed and threw a withering look in his direction. “No Cloud, you can come out now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you sure?” Cloud asked as he opened the closet door but remained standing in it. “Because there’s more than enough to read to keep myself entertained.” He gestured to the stack of books in the closet that stood taller than him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unsurprisingly given the way Tifa went through books, most of her room was covered in them. The closet he’d been crammed into was about ten percent clothing, ninety percent books. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Though I’m honestly a little shocked at your tastes,” Cloud continued with a smile as he grabbed the book off the top of the pile. It was a romance novel and a highly stereotypical one at that, with a muscular, shirtless man cradling a swooning woman in a gown in his arms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s so shocking about it?” Tifa asked as she took the book from his hands and tossed it onto the top of a different pile of books.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because that stuff is filthy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, yeah?” Tifa said with a smirk. “Worried it’s put ideas in my head that you can’t keep up with?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was bold for Tifa. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Tifa herself was well aware of that fact. As the dawning realization of what she’d just said out loud bloomed in her mind, a fresh blush bloomed across her cheeks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud decided to be just as bold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m willing to try,” he replied, soft and low as he ran his fingers over her jawline to tip her face upwards to his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa’s reply was something like a purr as Cloud’s lips met hers. </span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Cloud wasn’t entirely sure how long they ended up kissing for, but his jaw was aching when Tifa pulled away because of another interruption.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tifa, are you still up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her father again, his voice calling out from the end of the hallway as his footsteps approached her room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I’m just reading,” Tifa called out as she straightened her hair and clothing. “Lay on the floor on that side of the bed, he won’t see you,” Tifa whispered as she went to her door. Cloud did as told and stretched out on the floor on the far side of her bed. The entirety of under the bed was books and it made another shadowy enclave perfect for hiding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bedroom door opened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it a good book, honey?” He asked, and this time Cloud could say it was definitely playful. No suspicion now, though there was probably no suspicion earlier either. Cloud was just in a better mood now after the sustained period of necking and petting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s very entertaining,” Tifa replied and Cloud smirked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t stay up too late, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I won’t, Daddy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s a good girl,” he said quietly with another pat on the top of Tifa’s head. She didn’t brush it away this time. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodnight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The door clicked closed. Tifa stayed next to it as she listened to her father’s footsteps disappear into his own bedroom. A click from his closing door and then the quiet murmur of the small television in his bedroom. Every night he clicked it on to watch the late shows, but then never actually did because he could never stay awake in front of a TV. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No more interruptions, I hope,” Cloud said from where he lay on the floor. He put his hands behind his head and tried to adopt a cool, casualness to the position.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa flopped down onto her bed and smiled over the edge of her mattress at him. “He’ll be asleep before the first guest is even announced, so we’re good. You’re not needed anywhere else tonight, are you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nope. Zack is at Shinra mansion tonight so I’ve got nobody to report to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He took over your spot?” Evidently, Tifa still thought that Cloud was working with Sephiroth. “That doesn’t seem fair.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud shrugged as he thought up the best way to answer her truthfully within the lie she’d been fed about his status within Shinra. “It was a First Class SOLDIER situation. It’s not like I wanted to be at that creepy old mansion anyways. I’m much happier being with you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me too,” Tifa responded with a sweet smile down at him. “Hey, do you remember that time when we were kids and you got me that lovely yellow flower?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud’s heart had started pounding when she mentioned their childhood: he did not want to talk about their ill-fated trip up Mount Nibel. But she was remembering something that happened years before that when he was six and she was five. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I remember I slapped it into your face and you sneezed so hard you blew yourself over,” Cloud laughed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My dress ended up all the way up to my neck,” Tifa was laughing at the memory as well. Cloud remembered she had cried at the time. “I flashed the whole town and you ran off without even giving me the flower!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Cloud said with an embarrassed huff. “Sorry about that. I uh... kind of destroyed the flower when I hit you in the face with it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa buried her face in her pillow to let out the laugh that came bubbling up. Cloud buried his face in his hands to hide the embarrassed blush that had crept up his cheeks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What was your plan with that flower?” Tifa’s heartier laughter had died down but some giggles escaped her as she asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I swear I was just trying to give it to you,” Cloud replied through his hands. “I saw you admiring the flowers at the flower cart one time and so I went looking for nice ones in the foothills.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be upset,” Tifa said as she gently pulled back one of his hands to reveal his face again. “You did find a nice one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I guess. But then I totally screwed it up. If I noticed something got your attention, I’d do it. But I’d always do it wrong.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A silence sat between them and Cloud looked up to see how Tifa was taking the news that he’d always been trying to make her happy. It was probably a lot to take in: here he was admitting that he’d actually been paying attention to her all the times she’d thought he’d been ignoring her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that true?” Tifa asked very quietly as she ran her fingers through Cloud’s hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That I always screw shit up?” Cloud tried to put a sardonic laugh at the end of the question to make it less pathetic but couldn’t manage to choke it out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, that you wanted my attention.” The look on Cloud’s face must have given him away because she continued without him having to speak. “I always wanted yours, you know. Well, of course you know, I was pretty vocal about it. Every other boy in town wanted my attention but I wanted yours.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We always want what we don’t have, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The human condition,” Tifa said with a sigh. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why’d you want my attention so bad?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had you picked out for something…” Tifa didn’t finish the thought, a blush that could rival Cloud’s had broken out over her cheeks and was suddenly the only thing she could think about.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need to know this,” Cloud pushed himself up with a smirk so he was eye level with the bright red Tifa. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No you don’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I do,” Cloud persisted with a laugh. “What did you have me picked out for, Teef?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a second, it looked like Tifa wasn’t going to tell him. She pursed her lips together and darted her eyes away when he leaned into her line of sight. “I had you picked out as my first kiss.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well if you’d led with that when we were kids, I might have been convinced to play with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa scowled at him but the look softened when she saw the smile on Cloud’s face. “You want to know the really embarrassing part of this? I had you picked out as my first kiss when I was three and I never would have guessed I was going to wait twelve years to get it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t see why it’s embarrassing to wait for perfection,”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Be serious,” Tifa laughed as she took a playful swipe at Cloud. He dodged it, remembering that Tifa always had been stronger than she looked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am being serious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You don’t think it’s embarrassing I’ve never kissed anyone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would it make you feel better if I told you you’re my first kiss too?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t believe that girls in Midgar aren’t throwing themselves all over you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s been some interest, I guess. But maybe I’ve been waiting for a specific person too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re so sweet,” Tifa made the comment with her dreamy smile so Cloud knew it was true. Or at least that Tifa believed it. Cloud didn’t think he was very sweet: thinking back to the way he had treated Tifa over the years, he was sure he wasn’t. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d had such an attitude as a kid. A superiority complex that was completely unearned. They lived next door to each other but they were never close. His quiet pining for her couldn’t be called sweetness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When we were kids,” Cloud asked after a moment of silence had passed, “how come you wanted to be my friend when I was always so mean to you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were mean to me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well… yeah. I used to ignore you and glare and scowl. I… I wasn’t a nice kid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You never glared and scowled at me, Cloud,” she replied with a soft smile. “And if you did, I didn’t think it was because you were mean.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you didn’t think I was mean, what did you think I was?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Lonely,” Tifa replied quietly. “I always thought you were lonely. That’s why I wanted to be your friend. I hate being lonely and I thought maybe you were the same.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even with the distance he had put between them, Tifa had him all figured out. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>had </span>
  </em>
  <span>been lonely here in Nibelheim, though he had always thought he was playing it off as aloofness. Apparently Tifa had seen through that no problem.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa’s slim fingers reached out to trail lightly across his jaw. Cloud looked up to Tifa and smiled. The lamp behind her head lit her like she had a halo. She deserved one, she was an angel.   </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you still lonely, Cloud Strife?” She asked very quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe a little,” he answered just as quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess I better come back to Midgar with you so you won’t be anymore,” she replied with a lilt to her voice that could have been teasing but Cloud knew was a quiet, desperate longing to stay with him longer. He recognized it because he felt it himself for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa could come back with him, it wouldn’t be so hard to accomplish. Shinra paid their grunts pretty well, even ones as low down the military police hierarchy as Cloud. He could put Tifa up in a small room, pay for her groceries, buy her sundresses, get her flowers and Mako Mounds and a pet cat to keep her company when he had to be at the barracks. He might not be able to financially keep up with her book habit but she’d love the Midgar library. They could go there together, walking along the sidewalks holding hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What a tantalizing dream so easily made a reality. All he had to do was tell Tifa the truth about his status in Shinra’s ranks and hope that she’d still come back with him after he revealed the truth.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe he didn’t even need to tell her. She’d seen right through to his lonely heart, maybe she had she figured out his SOLDIER trick just as easily?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He opened his mouth to tell her everything... but his pride stopped him. It was always stopping him. Instead of telling Tifa the truth and moving forward, he clammed up and stayed exactly where he was. Typical. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess I should go,” he muttered as he pushed himself up and away from Tifa’s expectant eyes. He stood and moved towards the window. Nibelheim was completely dark beyond the glass: he and Tifa were the last two awake in the small town. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Except the stars that twinkled, that was. Tifa was right, what a lonely existence it would be without those stars. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa looked crestfallen at the idea of Cloud leaving for the night. “You’re going to go?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s late.” As if Tifa couldn’t tell time, what a stupid excuse to use to run away from his problems.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you going to come back tomorrow night?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re… we’re leaving tomorrow night.” Cloud couldn’t look at Tifa as he delivered that news, though he could tell her reaction from the quiet, sad sigh she let out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So soon?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zack says we’ll be done by tomorrow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll try to come say goodbye before I leave, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or… You could stay. With me. For tonight, I mean…” she added with a small laugh: “I wouldn’t try and tell you to move back to this dull little town.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud turned back to look at Tifa as her declaration hung in the air between them. “Stay with you? Really?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa stood, her hands clasped behind her back, her eyes shyly dropped to the ground. “I want you to stay, Cloud.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud considered Tifa’s offer. Zack was probably already back at the inn and waiting up for him. He would worry where Cloud was if he didn’t show up back at their room. And there was Tifa’s father and what he’d do if he discovered them together, a distinct possibility if he was a parent that had a habit of checking in on his sleeping child. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Cloud had missed Tifa, he missed her more and more every time he left her for the night. And this was going to be the last night: he was leaving Nibelheim again, likely never to return. And besides, wasn’t she worth any risk he could think up? Punishment from superior officers? Punishment from an angry, protective father? It meant nothing next to how much he wanted to be with her. He’d take the risks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s why he’d followed her up Mount Nibel as a kid and why he’d wanted to join SOLDIER in the first place: he wanted to impress Tifa, he wanted to risk everything for her in grand gestures of love. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were vastly misguided gestures of love up to this point. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was asking for a much simpler one now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So… Will you stay?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud’s mouth hung open to reply an enthusiastic yes but all he could manage to do was nod his head like a dope before dropping to unlace his boots. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa pulled back the blankets on her neatly made bed. Cloud was going to stay. In her room. In her bed. How romantic! Just like one of her romance novels. Though those novels usually involved something other than sleeping. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Was</span>
  </em>
  <span> something about to happen? Things had to happen after you invited a boy into your bed, didn’t they? Were those things really about to happen in her bed? And beneath a pastel coloured quilt her mother had made her when she was a baby at that?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa dropped to the edge of her bed, her back to Cloud, suddenly very shy. “Cloud?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, Teef?” His voice was close, he was right behind her, his weight on the other side of the bed creaking the bed springs. The sound made Tifa blush. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I… I don’t think I want to go past kisses for now… I think… I think I just want to be together. Close to each other, without… you know...” The blush that her squeaking bed springs had started had spread across her whole face, chest, and shoulders by the time she’d finished speaking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, okay, that’s fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?” When Tifa had started that thought she wasn’t so sure a sixteen year old boy would want to just be together without something else. It’s not like she couldn’t be persuaded: she read enough romance for that. But Cloud always had been different.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was another squeaking of the bed springs as he shifted his weight to lay down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t want to go all the way with a boy yet. She wasn’t ready for anything like that. But when she turned to look over her shoulder and saw that Cloud’s arms were outstretched to take her into them, it was so inviting she forgot her fears of anything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa clicked off her bedside lamp and climbed into Cloud’s arms, nestling herself near his heartbeat. He hugged her tightly and kissed her gently on the top of her head and she smiled because those simple gestures made his heart beat just a little bit faster. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodnight, Cloud.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Goodnight, Teef.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa felt safe wrapped up in his arms; Cloud felt at peace. There was going to be trouble about this tomorrow, be it from Zack or Tifa’s father or his own heart as he left Nibelheim and Tifa behind once again. But for now, none of that mattered. This was exactly what they both wanted, when they wanted it.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Cloud was up with the rising sun. Not because he was an early riser or even because of the sun reflecting off his old bedroom window and directly into his eyes where he lay on Tifa’s bed. No, Cloud wasn’t up because of the sun itself; he was up because Tifa’s dad woke up with the rising sun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The patriarch of the Lockhart home shuffled around just outside Tifa’s door, moving from his room to the bathroom and back again. Cloud tensed every footstep that passed by Tifa’s room. It was amazing he’d slept as soundly as he had if this was the anxiety he was waking up to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He should leave. Sneak out the way he had snuck in. He had to get back to the inn before Zack went looking for him. But he couldn’t. Tifa was curled into him, his arms around her, her breath soft and warm on his chest. He’d dreamt of a field of flowers, no doubt because her hair smelled like wildflowers and he’d been nuzzled in it all night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of his own will, Cloud wouldn’t have left the sleeping Tifa. As her father’s footsteps neared her door once more, and this time stopped in front of it, </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>will probably wouldn’t be the stronger of the wills that would make him leave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Extracting his arm out from under Tifa, he was out of the bed and creeping quickly towards the window. He grabbed his boots with one hand, pushed open the window with the other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was that the sound of a doorknob turning? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>No time to put the boots on. Lucky he didn’t have the Buster sword with him, the noise of him chucking that out the window before climbing out himself wouldn’t have been covered by the squeak of the door hinge as Tifa’s father let himself in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud looked back for one last look at Tifa as he climbed through her chocobo curtains and dropped down to make his escape.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>“Rise and shine, Tifa sweetie!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was her father’s standard wake-up call, a booming exclamation delivered with the type of enthusiastic smile that only natural-born early birds could achieve in the morning.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It annoyed Tifa most days, waking her up just enough for her to growl angrily as she grabbed her extra pillow to put over her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Today, it woke her up completely. She didn’t have that extra pillow to cover her face with: Cloud was using that pillow! If he was still beside her and her father saw him... every terrible scenario played all at once in her mind. She sat up in bed with a gasp, her eyes darting to the spot Cloud had occupied last night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t there any longer but the panic didn’t dissipate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s wrong?” Her father asked as Tifa shot up wide awake. That wasn’t her usual reaction to his abrupt morning alarm call.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa stumbled around her mind for a moment looking for an answer to that question. She found one behind the fog of sleep and the sudden waking panic. “You… you scared me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Scared you?” He repeated with a smile. “Were you having a bad dream?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A bad dream? No, far from it. Last night with Cloud had been a good dream. But her father’s guess was a good cover. “I shouldn’t have stayed up late reading a horror story, I guess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I'd say this’ll teach you a lesson, but it won’t,” her father replied with a laugh. “I’m headed up to the reactor now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you allowed back? Are the SOLDIERs done?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I haven’t heard anything from them in two days, so I assume they’re finished. I don’t know what they were doing but maintenance has got to happen. You want to come up with me? I’d love the company.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure, daddy. Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll come with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no, have a shower and some food. Meet me up there for a late lunch, okay?” Tifa yawned as she opened her mouth to reply, so she just nodded instead. “That’s a good girl. Love you, honey.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Love you too, Daddy,” she replied through her yawn as he exited her room. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was alone again. She fell backwards onto her pillow and wondered how long she’d been alone before her father came bursting in. The pillow Cloud had slept on still smelled like him. It was still warm too. How could it still be warm, especially with her window wide open?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had she left that open last night?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The still warm pillow led her to the open window with a smile on her face. Cloud must have </span>
  <em>
    <span>just </span>
  </em>
  <span>left. Maybe he was still below her window, waiting for her to wake up so he could say a proper goodbye.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cloud?” The smile she’d had on her face slipped away into a shocked exclamation. Cloud was definitely still below her window, but not on the ground. The boy was hanging from the window frame by his fingertips!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good morning Tifa,” he replied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cloud what are you doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hanging around.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I assume Daddy scared you out of bed?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud nodded. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why didn’t you just leave instead of </span>
  <em>
    <span>hanging around</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How could I possibly leave?” The question came out as a grunt as he hefted himself back onto the window frame to have his hanging weight on his elbows instead of his fingertips. “I haven’t gotten a good morning kiss.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How sweet, risking falling from her window or discovery by her father for a kiss. How could Tifa decline the request?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she pulled back from the kiss, Cloud still made no move to go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Cloud said with a cheeky grin. “No goodbye kiss?”   </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa </span>
  <em>
    <span>could </span>
  </em>
  <span>have been about to kiss him again. Or maybe hit him. They ran out of time for either option when the backdoor of the Lockhart home squealed open. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The houses on this side of town sat right at the base of Mount Nibel and anyone wanting to climb it needed only cut across their own backyards. Cloud dropped from Tifa’s window and stayed ducked in the shadows. It wasn’t a very good hiding place, he would have been spotted instantly if Tifa’s father had looked back, but thankfully he didn’t. He disappeared into the woods of the foothills and Cloud was in the clear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud looked from the shadowy woods and back up to Tifa’s window. She was leaning out of it, her eyes also trained on the foothills.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So,” Cloud said with a laugh when she looked down to where he hid. “Should I climb back up for that goodbye kiss or do you want to come down?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa rolled her eyes and waved her hand at him dismissively. There was a smile on her face as she did though, so trouble was averted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Bye, Teef. Thanks for an amazing night’s sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you really sleep well?” Tifa called down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Beside you? Who wouldn’t?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She blew him a kiss as she moved away from her window. And even though she wasn’t there to see him do it, Cloud reached out to catch that kiss that Tifa blew to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa’s form retreated from the window and Cloud was left alone. As Cloud pulled on his boots he debated whether or not he had the time to actually climb back up for that goodbye kiss.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t be pathetic,” he muttered to no one but himself as he stood. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> Forcing his eyes off of Tifa’s window, he intended to cast them straight ahead and get back to the inn. Zack was probably in hysterics that he hadn’t shown up last night. The SOLDIER wouldn’t officially reprimand Cloud, but he’d still get an earful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he didn’t cast his sights on the inn. His eyes instead drifted from Tifa’s window to his own bedroom window. Though he supposed since he’d left it wasn’t really his anymore. He wondered if his mother had left it alone, leaving all his stuff where it lay. Just like she’d done when his father died. Did she feel like her son was dead too? It’s not like he had gone to any effort to stay in contact with her despite saying he would. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He decided to visit his mother. Right now. Why shouldn’t he? If Zack had waited all night for him, he could wait a little while longer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud strolled around to the front of his childhood home with the intention of walking right in to surprise his mom, but the front door was locked. She had turned into a bit of a recluse after his father’s death, he wondered if she had gotten worse after he left.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He lifted his hand to knock but was interrupted before his knuckles rapped against the dark wood of the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good morning, Cloud.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turned to see his mother behind him, returning from the market with her arms laden with grocery bags. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey mom,” he said with a smile he hoped hid his surprise at how different his mother seemed to look after just two years of being away from her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud was an identical copy of his mother, with the same fair hair and blue eyes, but looking at his mother now didn’t feel like looking into a mirror anymore. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a rather severe ponytail that made her seem older than she actually was. Or maybe that was the grey that was spoiling the gold of her hair. Her eyes seemed much sadder than he remembered them to be. Her smile seemed sadder too. The word he’d always thought best described his mother was </span>
  <em>
    <span>vibrant</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Either he’d never paid much attention to her or she’d faded since she was left alone in Nibelheim. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>One thing was unchanged about her: she was still wearing an apron over her clothing even when she wasn’t in the kitchen. So she hadn’t just worn it everywhere to embarrass her son as Cloud had always thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you hungry, darling?” She asked as she strode towards him. As she got closer, Cloud saw that one of the bags in her arms was from the bakery.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud pointed to the bakery bag fervently hoping it had strawberry pastries in it. “Did you get-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your favourite strawberry pastries?” She asked with a smile as she unloaded the groceries from her own arms and into Cloud’s. “Of course.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If his mother was surprised or shocked or pleased or </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> to see her son standing on the front porch unexpectedly, she didn’t show it beyond the smile that stayed on her face as she unlocked the front door and ushered him in for breakfast. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks mom,” he said as he crossed over the threshold to his childhood home.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Sitting down at the kitchen table of his mother’s house felt strange after his two years away, and yet it was also a profoundly nostalgic experience. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Strange because Cloud was feeling a bit guilty that he’d been in Nibelheim for a week and this was the first time he’d stopped in to see his mother.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nostalgic because they’d fallen into their routines again without missing a beat. Cloud would carry groceries home for his mother and she’d sit him at the kitchen table for a pastry treat while she put everything away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Here you go, darling,” she cooed as she placed a plated pastry under his nose. The pastry was always delivered with a kiss to the top of his head when he was a kid and today was no different.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks Mom,” he said as he bit into the still warm baked good. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How is it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“As good as I remember them being. You got more than one, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her back was to him as she filled the kettle for her late-morning cup of tea, but Cloud knew she was smiling because a chuckle shook her shoulders. “I see nothing’s changed from when you were a kid. You would have eaten yourself sick on them if I’d let you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I plan on doing that now. This is the first one I’ve managed to get since being back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A whole week here and this is your first strawberry pastry?” The tone in which that statement was delivered made Cloud acutely aware that she wasn’t shocked about how long it had taken him to get a </span>
  <em>
    <span>pastry</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sorry I didn’t come to see you sooner,” he said as he swallowed down the last bite. He stuck his fingers in his mouth to suck off the powdered sugar and think up what excuse he could possibly use to get out of trouble. “I was… busy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>was a pathetic excuse. He should have gotten his hands messier so he would have had more time to think.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The corner of her mouth twitched into a small smile as she moved to put the kettle on the stove. “Oh yes, Tifa has been keeping you very busy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tifa?” Cloud squeaked in surprise. He cleared his throat when he continued. “I haven’t seen Tifa. Why would I see her?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Claudia Strife cocked her eyebrow, the same look of disbelief that crossed her face when he’d lie as a child. “Don’t lie to your mother, Cloud.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you trying to say that it wasn’t you that I saw you scaling the side of the Lockhart house last night? And it wasn’t you climbing the water tower the night before that? And it wasn’t you walking with Tifa through the foothills the night before that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh. So you saw all that.” Now Cloud knew how Zack had felt when confronted with information that was supposed to be secret.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I probably never would have known you were here but I’ve made a habit of popping into your room at night. Like I used to do when you were little and sound asleep. Helps me feel less lonely,” she said with a sigh as she dropped a tea bag into a mug. “I just happened to be in your room at exactly the same time you showed up to throw pebbles at Tifa’s window. I looked out the window just like her. And when I saw you down in the alleyway I almost ran down to see you like Tifa did.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The mug was placed on the table in exactly the same place she always placed her mug: a perfect ring waited expectantly for it to be filled with hot water. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You weren’t here to see me,” she said with another sigh as she went to grab the sugar bowl and a spoon. “I didn’t want to intrude.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The guilt trip of a lifetime had just been dropped on Cloud’s head. Well, the guilt trip of a lifetime until he got back to the inn and Zack laid into him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It really has been very lonely here without you, Cloud.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, Mom,” he sputtered as he turned to face her. “I should have shown up here first. I don’t know why I didn’t.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry, darling,” the small smile was back as she returned to the table with the sugar bowl and another pastry for Cloud. “I understand why you want to see that pretty little thing more than your mother. And you’re here now,” she added when she noticed her son’s eyes darting away from hers. He never really had been one for eye contact, especially when he was upset.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A moment of silence stretched between the two Strifes. It was broken by the whistling of the kettle. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So,” Claudia said as she clicked off the stove top element and carried the kettle to her mug. “How’s the SOLDIER program? I’m glad the wars are over but you must still be doing some very dangerous things. It has me worried, you know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, Mom. But… I mean… don’t worry about it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> worry about you Cloud, you’re my child.” The statement was delivered in the deadpan way all parents used when they wanted their word taken as gospel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud didn’t have to take it as gospel because there really wasn’t any reason for his mother to worry. Of course his mother didn’t know that and she continued prattling on about his safety as she put the kettle back on the stove top. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know Shinra trains SOLDIERs well but they can’t train you for everything! I’ve read about what Sephiroth has done. I mean really, they’ve got no right-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom, I’m not a SOLDIER.” The words spewed out of his mouth without him being able to stop them. There it was, the truth. Out on the table like all the crumbs of the flakey pastries he was being served. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not a SOLDIER? But you left to be a SOLDIER.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t make the cut.” Cloud was shocked to find that the admission of his shameful secret didn’t hurt like he’d thought it would. It instead felt like a long needed exhalation of breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you’re not a SOLDIER...” His mother thought about this new information before asking the question that any mother would ask. “But you stayed there anyways? You didn’t think to come back to Nibelheim?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had to stay, Mom. I didn’t want to have to come back here and tell everyone the truth. They’d think I was a bigger screw up than they already do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not a screw up, Cloud.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to say that, you’re my mother!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you wearing a SOLDIER uniform if you’re not a SOLDIER?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do you know what a SOLDIER uniform looks like?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well when you give birth to someone it’s only natural to try and keep tabs on them. When you told me you were going into the program I had to keep up on it. So what’s with the uniform?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve been pretending to be a SOLDIER when I go to see Tifa. So she doesn’t see that I’ve continued to be a screw up since leaving.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve been lying to Tifa this whole time?” Claudia asked as she ducked into the fridge for milk for her tea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not… really?” Cloud responded with a shrug. “I’ve been dressing like a SOLDIER but I’m not directly saying I’m in the program.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s lying, Cloud!” His mother exclaimed with a sharp shutting of the fridge door. Cloud thought that that was the most force he’d ever seen his soft-spoken mother show. Though maybe he was misremembering her soft-spokenness like he was her vibrancy. “Is this how I raised you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Apparently,” Cloud responded with a smirk. The sarcasm earned him a look he hadn’t seen since he’d first told his mother he was going to leave and be a SOLDIER. It was another instant guilt trip. “I feel bad about it though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then you should tell her the truth.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s too late for that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s never too late for the truth.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean, it’s not like I want to lie to her. I almost told her everything last night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Almost?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I stopped half a second before it came spilling out of my mouth.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What made you feel like you wanted to tell the truth then?” This line of questioning was how his mother had helped him work through problems when he was a little kid and couldn’t express himself properly. It really went to show him how little he’d managed to grow up if she still felt the need to baby him at sixteen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted to invite her back to Midgar with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you really want her to go back with you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I only just left her and I’m already so desperate to see her again. How am I ever going to be able to leave without her?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you feel that strongly about it you should tell her the truth and invite her. I’m sure she’d forgive you for your little trick and then I wouldn’t have to worry about you. All those big city temptations and you without a good woman to keep you in line has me very worried. Tifa is training with the master Zangan, you know. She’d keep you in line.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s nice, mom. You want your son to be beaten to a pulp.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only when he deserves it,” she said with a chuckle as she kissed the top of his head once again. “Now darling, when do you have to report back?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud should have reported back to Zack approximately ten hours ago. But if his mother was already worried about him he wouldn’t tell her that and have her worry more. “I’ve got a bit more time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh good,” she said with a smile as she finally took a seat. “You can tell me all about Midgar while I drink my tea.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud suspected his mother didn’t care at all about Midgar and just wanted to hear her son’s voice before he disappeared again. Cloud was happy to oblige, he’d missed hearing her voice as well.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Cloud stayed at his mother’s house for a lot longer than he thought he would. He sat and talked with her for over five hours, from eleven in the morning to four in the afternoon. Within those five hours, the early autumn sun was already beginning its descent, Cloud had eaten half a dozen strawberry pastries, and he had been fully convinced by his mother to tell Tifa the truth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa had become the main topic of conversation again when about two hours after Cloud had taken a seat at the kitchen table he’d zoned out halfway through a sentence. His mother had followed his line of vision out the large kitchen window and onto Tifa as she made her way  across her backyard to the trails of Mount Nibel. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The way you look at her…” she commented with a smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That bad, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was obvious how bad he had it and his mother went about telling him the virtues of a good woman with a fervor. She didn’t really need to debate as hard as she did, Cloud found he needed very little convincing. He was going to tell Tifa the truth and hopefully still have enough nerve after doing that to ask her to come back to Midgar with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he stood to leave, and hugged his mother goodbye, he thanked her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re welcome, darling,” she replied with a smile and a few tears as she saw her son out the front door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will you come to see us off tonight, Mom?” He asked as he stepped out of the front door and into the overhead sun. He was leaving home again, but Cloud found there was a lot less trepidation in his heart this time around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His mother looked a bit shocked at the request, no doubt remembering how the last time her son left town he’d insisted she stay home. “Of course, Cloud. Someone is going to have to protect you from Brian,” she said with a laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yeah, Tifa’s father could still be a problem. But that was a problem for later. The problem he had to deal with now was a SOLIDER that would probably be pissed right off that Cloud had been gone all night, morning, and most of the afternoon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud gave his mother another hug before heading back to the inn.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>The inn was quiet as Cloud walked past the small front desk and towards the stairs. It’s not like he thought the four room inn of Nibelheim would be busy and loud </span>
  <em>
    <span>ever</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but it was dead quiet. A pin dropping at the end of the bar would be heard from the top of the stairs. Were the other MPs not here again?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their door was closed as Cloud passed it, but if they were in there, he’d hear their conversation. Or at least the shuffling of the cards they were constantly playing with. But there was nothing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Where was everyone?  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud opened the door to his room expecting to find it empty but he found Zack. The SOLDIER was sitting on the end of Cloud’s bed, slumped over, head in his hands, lost in thought. Seemingly a tense one because his leg bounced up and down nervously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The door squeaked as it opened and the SOLDIER’s gaze snapped up. The look in his eyes was fierce.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cloud!” Zack had instinctively reached for the sword that was on the bed beside him, but when he saw it was Cloud, he stood and left it forgotten as he made a beeline over to him. “You’re alive!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, hey. Sorry I didn’t come back last night.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack looked relieved to see Cloud. He grabbed his shoulders to make sure he was solid and actually standing there in front of him. “Kid, I thought you were dead!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This close up, Cloud couldn’t help but see how terrible the SOLDIER looked. Flushed skin, dark circles under his mako eyes, hair messy like he’d had been running his hands through it all night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I-I spent the night with Tifa,” Cloud sputtered as he took in the sight of the usually put together SOLIDER. “And I was just with my mom now.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m so glad you’re not dead!” Zack wrapped Cloud up in a hug.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had Cloud caused so much grief in not coming back last night that Zack wasn’t even going to raise an eyebrow at him having spent the night with a girl? And did Zack really think he was so helpless that one night away would leave him dead? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The way he was clinging to Cloud right now, had he even heard Cloud’s excuses? Did he even care where he’d been? Was he really just that relieved to see Cloud </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive</span>
  </em>
  <span>?  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zack, what is up with you?” Cloud asked as he pushed the SOLIDER off him. “Why would you think I was dead?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because the other two are!” Zack began the thought as a shout, but hushed himself like he remembered it was a secret that needed to be kept.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? Who? The other two MPs?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I sent them to the Shinra mansion the other day to check on Sephiroth and they didn’t come back, and when I went to investigate the mansion last night, I found them. Dead.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dead by what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My guess? And keep in mind I’m basing this on a lot of evidence so it’s an accurate guess, okay? It was a really long sword.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like… Sephiroth’s Masamune?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, it wasn’t my Buster sword that stabbed through their throats!” Zack replied with an incredulous laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But… Why?”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack dropped to the end of his bed. “He’s gone crazy. Totally crazy.” The SOLDIER’s head shook back and forth, his body seeming to reject the idea that Shinra’s star had gone suddenly insane.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was obvious that Sephiroth had undergone some sort of attitude change since coming to Nibelheim. He’d been as amicable as Cloud had ever seen him before when they’d arrived and then he’d gone into the reactor and come out gruff and short-tempered. But was he suddenly insane? Wasn’t that a lot? And fast? What had he found in this insignificant mountain town? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zack, what the hell is happening here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sephiroth found things at the reactor that first day we were up there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did he find?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know. I didn’t find anything - he did! And whatever he found meant something to him because then he went to the mansion and found </span>
  <em>
    <span>more </span>
  </em>
  <span>things!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What </span>
  <em>
    <span>things</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think… I think things about his </span>
  <em>
    <span>life</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What does that mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know for sure because I didn’t understand a lot of what I found in the mansion when I was there, but… I think… I think Sephiroth was made in a lab.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All SOLDIERs are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not talking about him as a SOLDIER.” Zack replied, more to the floor than to Cloud. The SOLDIER had dropped his eyes to the dark wood floor like he was ashamed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not as a SOLDIER…” Cloud muttered to himself. “Not just mako upgrades?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. Something much more substantial than that. Like… his life, Cloud, his goddam life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“His whole life?” Cloud asked. “Like… his body? His brain?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack shrugged. “Yeah, I mean… I don’t know. Not for sure… The reactor up there is the key to all this,” he said as he pointed where Mount Nibel’s shadows were already beginning to lengthen across the town. “I don’t know </span>
  <em>
    <span>what </span>
  </em>
  <span>he’s doing up there now but-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A cold fist gripped tightly around Cloud’s heart. “He’s up there now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. He went up there last night. I’m sure he hasn’t come back down.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tifa and her father went up to the reactor earlier!”</span>
  <span>
    <br/>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That made Zack look up from the floor. “What? When exactly? Maybe they haven’t gotten there yet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Her father went up about five hours ago. I saw Tifa leave about two hours after him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shit!” Zack shouted as he grabbed his sword. “He’ll be there now and she’ll be there soon. If they find Sephiroth, they’re-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud didn’t want to hear the end of that thought. He grabbed his gun that had gone unused as of yet and turned on his heel to make a break for the door. They had to get up Mount Nibel. And they had to do it now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even without hearing Zack say it out loud, Cloud knew what was at stake.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter 18</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Cloud and Zack needed to get to the top of a mountain and they needed to get there quickly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do we get up there that fast?” Cloud shouted over his shoulder as they stampeded down the inn stairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“SOLDIER powers!” Zack shouted back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? What powers?” </span>
  <em>
    <span>SOLDIER powers</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Was this a joke? It was a bad time for it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You!” Zack yelled as the two of them reached the bottom of the stairs. Cloud turned to see that the SOLDIER was pointing at the innkeeper behind the front desk. “I need a car. Now!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, this is what Zack considered SOLDIER powers? At least it wasn’t a joke.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack was intimidating when he wanted to be and the innkeeper didn’t question the demand. He didn’t say anything as he reached under the counter and retrieved a set of keys. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack grabbed them out of the man's hand. “Where is it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Out back,” the man stammered. “But wait-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t want to hear it!” Zack yelled as he and Cloud changed course to exit through the back door. “Bill Shinra for it!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Impressive SOLDIER powers,” Cloud smirked as the two burst into the alleyway behind the inn. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“People see the mako eyes glowing and they don’t hesitate to help you. There’s our ride, let’s go!” Zack made a beeline for a beat up, military vehicle. Even with the army green painted over with a cheery yellow, it was clear it was a decommissioned Shinra war machine. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this thing even going to start?” Cloud asked as he wrenched open the passenger side door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you kidding?” Zack jumped into the car and the suspension squeaked. “If Shinra knows how to do anything, it’s how to build a long-lasting tool of oppression.” He put the key in the ignition and the engine jumped immediately to life. “See? I doubt we’ll get my radio station though.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just floor it, would you? Tifa could be there already!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, kid, I know,” Zack said, suddenly grave as he threw the car into drive and tore out of the alley. “Bad jokes are how I cope.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud would have loved to make a smartass remark about the state of all of Zack’s jokes but the car came to a sudden, screeching halt and it was all Cloud could do to stop his face from smashing into the dusty dashboard. “Shit! Zack, what are you doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know where the hell I’m going! Can we even get a car up the mountain?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, around the north face of the mountain is a trail wide enough to drive on. Towards the train station and then left.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really? Why didn’t we just drive up instead of climbing?” He put the car in reverse, having turned out of the alley pointed towards the south face of Mount Nibel. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The walking trail is a more direct route to the reactor. The north side is more winding.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shit kid, why didn’t you say that sooner?” The engine revved as Zack tore backwards through the main street.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Here, turn here!” Cloud pointed as the road that would take them around the base of Mount Nibel and to the driving path appeared.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The car slid into the turn, Zack expertly switched gears from reverse to drive, and sped off in the forward direction. It was an expert maneuver. Cloud didn’t even know that Zack could drive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happens when we get there?” Cloud asked as the car hit the first steep incline that the vehicle path had.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whatever Sephiroth found up there, he found at the back of the reactor. If Tifa’s dad only went for maintenance on the control panels, we’ll find him just inside the first set of doors and alive, with Tifa on the steps outside.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And if he’s gone in deeper than that?” Cloud didn’t need to ask that question, it was obvious what the answer was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He probably hasn’t,” Zack replied, evidently reading Cloud’s mind and trying to put him at ease.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But if he has?” Cloud asked again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We won’t find him alive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud made a pained sound at the back of his throat and looked away out his window. The only thing passing by was the rock of Mount Nibel and the shadows extending with the setting autumn sun. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look kid, I’m not going to lie to you, this could already be over for Tifa’s dad, </span>
  <em>
    <span>but </span>
  </em>
  <span>not for Tifa. You said she left around one? She’s probably just getting up there now. And if she doesn’t have a clearance card, she’s not getting into the reactor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No buts, Cloud! We can’t do anything until we get up there; so don’t focus on the bad shit. Just believe that she’s going to be fine, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud wasn’t known for his optimism but he let Zack’s calm his nerves. If Zack said Tifa was going to be fine, she was going to be fine. He repeated it over and over as he watched the rocky landscape fly past.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Tifa rounded the last turn before the reactor just after four o’clock. She smiled as she turned the corner, expecting to see her father awaiting her arrival. He knew how long it took her to climb Mount Nibel and usually stopped his work a few minutes before she arrived so he could greet her. Lunch atop Mount Nibel was the favourite quality time of the two Lockharts, and he’d set up little picnics for Tifa to arrive at.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But not today. He wasn’t waiting on the rusted metal steps for her. He wasn’t anywhere that Tifa could see.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Daddy?” She called out, just in case he’d expected her sooner and had wandered off in the meantime. “Hello?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa’s response was her own voice echoing back to her. But there was another sound that met her ears: the squeaking of a door on a rusty hinge. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa looked to the top of the reactor’s stairs to see that the door to the reactor was open and swaying slightly back and forth in the wind. Had her father left it open for her? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She climbed the steps to the door two at a time. When she reached the top, she pushed the door all the way open. The small entrance way was empty and the heavy metal blast door that led into the reactor proper was also open. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That definitely shouldn’t be open…” Tifa muttered as she peered into the shadowy interior of the reactor. “Daddy? Daddy are you in there?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was once again nothing but the echo of her own voice for an answer. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Where was her father? Was he here? Should she go in to look for him? Should she go back down to Nibelheim and get the SOLDIERS? That would take a long time, what if he was in there and hurt?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Daddy?” She called again, hoping that the third time was the charm, that he’d call out to her and prove that he was fine without her having to go in. Because despite all the years she’d been begging her father to let her into the reactor to look around, she was suddenly hesitant to enter it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But there was still no answer. And Tifa didn’t have the time to think of anything else to do. So she stepped through the first open door and then the second, and entered the Mount Nibel reactor. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Chapter 19</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The interior of the reactor was shadowy and noisy. The machinery within the tall, metal structure clicked and hummed and droned, muffling Tifa’s footsteps as she moved throughout. Or maybe her footsteps were quiet because she was tiptoeing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something felt very wrong in the reactor. She couldn’t tell </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but she just knew something was. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“D-dad?” She stammered out into the shadows. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>No reply. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Still </span>
  </em>
  <span>no reply. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Why </span>
  </em>
  <span>no reply?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A noise behind her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turned quickly to peer into the shadows. What was the noise behind her? Clanking machinery? Rattling pipes? Or was it clanking footsteps… and rattling breath? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Was it someone else? Not her father. It </span>
  <em>
    <span>couldn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> be her father, he wouldn’t skulk through the shadows to scare her like this. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Who else was in here with them?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa kept her eyes on the shadows as she instinically began to back away. “Daddy, please answer me!” She yelled it this time, a definite panic rising in her voice as tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa couldn’t see anything in the shadows she continued to back away from, but she felt like she was in danger. And immediately her mind went to Cloud. He’d promised to save her when she was in danger. Could he sense it now? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her foot slipped on something as she backed away and her eyes dropped to see what it was. It was a metal pipe. No... It was a sword hilt. On a very long sword. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa’s eyes moved along the sword from hilt to point. And at the point, she found the danger she’d thought had been in the shadows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Daddy?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was her father. Laid out on the floor. Unmoving. The point of the sword coated in blood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh no, no, no, no!” She ran to her father and dropped to her knees beside him. She put her hands on his face. He didn’t move. She put her hands on his chest. He wasn’t breathing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sword had pierced his heart. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Daddy… no… please no…” The tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes began to stream down her cheeks as she collapsed onto her dead father’s chest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This place filled with mako and secrets. This sword featured on every propaganda poster. It was clear who had killed her father. And it was clear he was still here. His sword lay just a few feet away. Where would Shinra’s star SOLDIER go without his sword? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sephiroth… SOLDIERs… mako… Shinra… I’m sick of this…” Tifa mumbled into the bloodied shirt of her father. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why did he do this? Why should this happen? Her father was a good man, a kind and loving man, why should he be sliced down like a Nibel wolf that was killing cows?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clenching her fists, she lifted her head and screamed: “I’m sick of all of this!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth should pay. Sephiroth </span>
  <em>
    <span>would </span>
  </em>
  <span>pay. His sword lay on the ground just a few feet away. That’s how he would pay. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa stood. She thought her legs would be shaky. Her father was dead, and soon, a SOLDIER would be too. And by her own hands. But her legs weren’t shaky. They were rock solid as she stooped to grab the hilt of Sephiroth’s sword and moved further into the reactor to find the man himself. </span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Tifa found Sephiroth quickly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was at the back of the reactor. Tifa had followed his voice. It was quiet at the back of the reactor and the SOLDIER was talking to himself. Talking to himself about… his mother? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The SOLDIER stood at the top of a metal staircase in front of a huge set of sealed metal doors. Above the door was a label: JENOVA. He stood completely still, his head craned upwards at the label like he saw something other than a meaningless Shinra codeword. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mother… together we... this world…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t understand what he was saying. Half his words were mumbled and lost in the sound of Tifa’s own pounding heart. But Tifa thought even if he were screaming what he was saying, she still wouldn’t understand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she didn’t want to understand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The SOLDIER had gone mad. She had no interest in mad things. Outside herself, of course. Because as she snuck up behind Shinra’s star SOLDIER, tiptoeing up the stairs he stood atop of, intent to kill him and already raising the weapon that would do it, she felt mad herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Would killing Sephiroth with his own sword dispel the madness, or make it worse? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa didn’t get an answer to that question. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She brought the blade of the sword swinging down, angled right for the pale skin of his neck, but the SOLDIER turned and made up the distance between himself and Tifa and caught the sword by the blade right near the hilt all in a solitary blink of her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the next blink, Sephiroth had disarmed her of his sword, pierced her through the gut with it, and withdrew from the conflict with an impassive glance as Tifa fell backwards down the stairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It felt as if she were falling in slow motion; leaning back and back but resisting gravity’s pull. But it was inevitable that she would eventually fall back until she hit something. And she did as the stairs came up beneath her. And then, she was falling too quickly, the pain of her pierced insides accelerating her descent down the metal stairs to the concrete floor at the bottom of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth watched Tifa tumble down the stairs but didn’t stay to see if she was dead. “I’m coming now, Mother,” he said as he moved through the large metal doors labelled JENOVA. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were no words for Tifa, no glance backwards, no acknowledgment, no nothing. How miniscule she was in his eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As a pool of blood began to gather beneath her body, tears once again gathered in the corners of her eyes.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Chapter 20</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Zack tore up Mount Nibel at a perilous pace, bouncing over rocks and coming dangerously close to driving off the side of the cliff more than once, but the two made it to the reactor in one piece and in record time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tifa’s not out here!” Cloud yelled as he scanned the landscape. There wasn’t much to scan, just the path leading to the reactor and the reactor itself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No shit, Zack!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay kid, here’s the plan...” Zack began as they jumped out of the Shinra vehicle. Zack pocketed the keys but both left his door wide open as they made a mad dash up the reactor stairs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well what’s your plan?” Cloud asked with a huff when they reached the outer door. Zack had never let a thought of his go unsaid before, it was frustrating to be left hanging at a critical time like now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was hoping I would have thought of one by now,” he returned with a sigh as he pushed open the outer door. The inner door was open as well but no sounds beyond the rattling of the various machinery could be heard. That could be a good sign: no screaming could mean no problem. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though it could also mean no survives.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that was definitely the vibe this place was giving off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud must have had the same thought because he pushed by Zack to get into the reactor. It took all the SOLDIER’s self-control to not reach out and grab him away from the danger. To march him back down to the car and tell him to sit and stay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were others that needed protecting before Cloud. He had a gun at least, basic MP training, Tifa and her father, if they were indeed inside the reactor, didn’t even have that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack followed after Cloud and they entered the inner workings of the reactor. “Okay, here’s the plan for real. We look for the Lockharts together but if we find Sephiroth, you leave him to me, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If he’s hurt Tifa-” Cloud took a step to charge off into the dark like the spirit of vengeance he thought himself to be, but this time Zack did reach out to grab him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, absolutely not!” Zack said as he gripped his fingers roughly into Cloud’s shoulder. He didn’t try to turn Cloud around but he kept a firm grasp as he spoke. “You’re not going to fight Sephiroth for Tifa’s honour or your revenge fantasy or anything, you got that?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Big brother protective mode had activated in Zack and there would be no turning it off. He’d really grown to care for Cloud and he wasn’t going to carry his body out of here because he got in Sephiroth’s way. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not when he was sure he’d already be carrying a body out of this reactor. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he didn’t say that to Cloud. He just took his hand off the kid’s shoulder and moved to be in front of him as they searched the reactor.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Chapter 21</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Tifa felt cold. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The autumn day had been hot, the sun beating down on her as she’d climbed Mount Nibel like it was still the languid days of August. She had been sweating when she arrived at the reactor and ready to enjoy the cherry cola she knew her father had hauled up for the two of them in his lunch bag. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>While her throat was still dry, she was no longer hot. Tifa was cold. Freezing in fact. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knew that she was dying. But she’d never expected death to be cold. She always thought it would be hot - excruciatingly so, like the burns she’d once gotten on her hands as a child when she’d touched the metal kettle boiling on the stove top. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That feeling was what death was. Painful and hot, beginning and ending all in one blazing second.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she was dying now and it wasn’t that. It was cold. And slow. And lonely. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As her eyes got harder and harder to keep open, her mind filled with thoughts of Cloud Strife. He had promised to come save her if she was ever in danger. It seemed like she’d never been in more danger than she was now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But… He hadn’t come yet. When he’d left Nibelheim at fourteen, Tifa didn’t think he’d ever be back. She made him make that promise as something of a lark: she never thought she’d see him again, she didn’t expect him to uphold her silly promise. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then he’d come back. And he’d become someone different since being away. The thought that maybe she loved him had been all she’d had on her mind as she climbed Mount Nibel today. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud was going to come. He was. Tifa just needed to hang on until then.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But her eyes kept drooping. For longer and longer. It was too hard to keep them open. Not even concentrating on the cold was keeping her awake. Maybe if she just closed her eyes for a moment - just a moment - Cloud would be here when she opened them again?  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa closed her eyes. Cloud stayed on her mind until it dipped into unconsciousness. </span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Cloud and Zack searched the reactor in silence. He wanted to call out Tifa’s name because he wanted her to answer him and say she was fine. But Zack had told him to keep quiet. So Cloud clamped his mouth shut as they searched.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Near the back of the reactor though, when they found the body of Tifa’s father, Cloud let out a yelp of despair. He’d been stabbed through the heart, probably dead before he hit the ground. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keep it together, kid,” Zack had said in a low, measured voice. “Tifa could still be fine, okay? Stay quiet and let’s move.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack didn’t seem to believe his own platitudes about Tifa’s well-being because he doubled his pace to the back of the reactor. When he turned a corner and skidded to a sudden halt, Cloud knew what he had found.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pushed past the SOLDIER and broke his order to stay quiet once again. “Tifa!” He yelled as he ran to where she lay unmoving on the concrete ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud dropped to his knees beside her but hesitated touching her, his hands hovering above one part of her to the next. There was a lot of blood beneath her, and one of her arms was at a weird angle. She’d obviously been stabbed and had tumbled down the staircase she lay at the bottom of. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s not dead, is she?” Zack asked as he slowly stepped forward. The SOLDIER’s voice was low, but unlike a moment ago, it was not measured. Anger was clearly just below the surface.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I-I don’t know,” Cloud stammered. He didn’t want to move her and make it worse, so he reached out to brush the hair off her face. Her eyes were closed, but as his fingers brushed over her face, he felt her breath on his fingertips. It was shallow, but she </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> breathing. “She’s alive!” He exclaimed with a glance up at Zack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The SOLDIER visibly relaxed. Though not completely. “I can’t believe he’s attacking civilians…” he muttered as he looked from Tifa to the top of the stairs and the metal doors he knew Sephiroth was behind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cloud…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Both sets of eyes dropped to the plaintive voice. It was Tifa, stirred awake by Cloud’s hand that still rested on her cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Cloud, you came.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m here, Tifa.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You kept your promise… my SOLDIER came to save me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A small smile had turned up the corners of her lips at the thought of Cloud the SOLDIER having saved her from death’s door. But it wasn’t true. Cloud was no SOLDIER and Tifa still might die and he couldn’t bear the thought that the last thing she’d known of him was a lie. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So despite this being a less than optimal time to let all the lies come spilling out, Cloud told Tifa the truth. “Tifa, I’m not a SOLDIER. I… I lied to you because I couldn’t admit that I failed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa’s brows drew together, her face forming a grimace as she thought about what Cloud was saying. “Not a SOLDIER…” She thought for a moment longer before declaring weakly what she thought of Cloud’s sudden news. “Good… I’m so happy it was a lie.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are?” Cloud whispered as he reached out his hand to Tifa’s flushed cheek once again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m glad you’re not a SOLDIER. I… I hate SOLDIERs. I… I just want </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>to save me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What a relief to hear Tifa say that! Maybe it was just this moment, maybe she’d hate him later for lying, but for this moment, all she cared about was that he was here for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t say it’s a huge surprise you hate SOLDIERs now,” Zack said with a sigh from above the two teenagers. Of course he’d been listening, eager to hear what the barely conscious Tifa would have to say. “I hope you’ll let this one atone for his sins?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa said nothing: just closed her eyes again. Cloud couldn’t tell if she had passed out or because she didn’t have an answer to Zack’s question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m going after him,” Zack said after a silent moment had passed. “Take care of Tifa.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud took a chance on shifting Tifa’s position. She had no major broken bones but the stomach wound was bad and Cloud had nothing to fix it with. “She’s bleeding a lot, Zack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The SOLDIER had already mounted the steps towards Sephiroth but turned back. “You’re good with first-aid, aren’t you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She needs stitches. Internal and external. I-I can’t do anything without a medi-pack!” Panic was rising in Cloud again now that Tifa was unresponsive. When she was talking, she was alive, but now that she wasn’t, every terrible possibility crossed his mind all at once.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack reached into his pants pocket and tossed the contents he pulled out at Cloud. “Here, take that. It’s better than any medi-pack.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“One tube of antiseptic paste isn’t going to fix this, Zack!” Cloud shouted with a brief glance at the tube that Zack had tossed him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not just any tube of paste, Cloud!” Zack shouted back. “That wound is nothing SOLDIER branded shit can't fix. Medicine so good it’s almost like </span>
  <em>
    <span>magic</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Just trust me, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud twisted the top off the tube and smelled it. The mystery paste inside definitely smelled like a distilled hospital.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Use the whole tube, both sides of the wound,” Zack instructed as began to climb the stairs again. “And push some in under the skin if you’re not too squeamish to do it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you have any more of this? For yourself?” Cloud called out as he began to squeeze the thick paste out onto Tifa’s wound.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think I’ll need it?” Zack asked from the top of the stairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re going up against Sephiroth,” Cloud responded. That would have been a teasing prod in lighter situations, but now, it was pure concern. There was a reason that Sephiroth was the star of the SOLDIER program. He had single-handedly ended wars. And that had only been a good thing because he’d been on their side as he did it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he wasn’t now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack knew it as well as Cloud did that getting between Sephiroth and whatever his goal was here at the reactor could very well be a suicide mission. Tifa and her father and the other MPs were proof of that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll be fine.” Zack said with the most genuine smile he could muster. “But just in case I’m not: here.” He reached into his other pocket and extracted the car keys from it. He tossed them down to Cloud who caught them with the hand not covered in the medical paste.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zack…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That wound will close up any second now and then she’ll be fine to carry out of here. I want you to go as soon as you can move her, okay kid? Get her in the car and get away from here. Don’t wait for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud nodded because he was unable to say anything. He didn’t want to say goodbye to Zack but it felt like that was what Zack was doing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The SOLDIER smiled again, a big toothy grin, before he turned and disappeared further into the reactor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good luck, Zack…” Cloud quietly spoke the small prayer under his breath as he stared down at Tifa, waiting for the miracle drug to work its magic.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Chapter 22</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Zack didn’t have a plan. That became clear as day when he found Sephiroth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At the back of the reactor, through a metal door labelled JENOVA, in the middle of nowhere, Sephiroth stood before a huge specimen jar with a thousand different pipes and wires coming from the </span>
  <em>
    <span>specimen </span>
  </em>
  <span>within it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inside the giant glass tube was a body… vaguely human looking but… worse. It - she? - was suspended in liquid, the long white hair that grew from her head flowing with the current of the filtering liquid she floated in. Her skin was grey, one of her eyes was open and glowing. There was something like coral growing around her, or Zack hoped was growing </span>
  <em>
    <span>around </span>
  </em>
  <span>her and not </span>
  <em>
    <span>out</span>
  </em>
  <span> of her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Worst of all - and that was really saying something because a lot in this situation was terrible - Sephiroth stood before the tank, his hand pressed against the glass, his face raised upwards to bask in the monstrous woman’s glow like she was the sun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What. The. Fuck.” Zack muttered as he looked from the monster in the tank to the SOLDIER that was staring up lovingly at it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But not just staring at it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Speaking </span>
  </em>
  <span>to it too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m here now, Mother.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>MOTHER?!</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“What! The! Fuck!” Zack screamed it this time, adjusting his volume to match his shock.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keep your voice down, Zack,” Sephiroth said with a sigh as he turned to acknowledge his fellow SOLDIER. He’d known that Zack was there the whole time: Zack could read it in his body language. The only reason he’d turned to speak to him was because Zack was disturbing whatever sick thing Sephiroth was planning on doing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Despite Sephiroth’s hand hovering above the hilt of his sword, Zack’s attention was drawn to the sigh that had escaped Sephiroth. That impatient sigh that always made an appearance when Zack was being immature. It was almost like Sephiroth was his old self in that moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Keep my voice down, huh? Why the hell would I do that?” Zack shouted across the wide expanse he’d kept between himself and Sephiroth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t disturb Mother.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That thing’s your mother, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” Sephiroth said as he turned back to face the thing in the tube. “Jenova’s cells are in every SOLDIER’s body, Zack. Cells from her body have granted all of us immeasurable gifts. Me most of all. You saw everything I left behind at the mansion, didn’t you? You know the truth of my birth. Jenova is my mother.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yes, Zack had seen everything left behind at the mansion, and yes, he’d put two and two together before ever arriving here to view that creature in the tube. But hearing it from Sephiroth’s mouth solidified it. It was true. And there was no going back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What was Zack supposed to do?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well Sephi…” he said with a shake of his head, “if that’s your mother, you must be relieved that you got your looks from your father.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth turned away from his mother, drawing his sword as he turned. “You’ll die for those words.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I always knew one of my jokes was going to land me in trouble...” This was admittedly a lot more trouble than he’d ever bargained for. Zack gripped the hilt of his sword tightly in hands and prepared for that trouble.</span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <em>
    <span>The SOLDIER branded shit</span>
  </em>
  <span>, as Zack had so aptly called it, did exactly what he said it would do. The wound began to heal, the skin seeming to stitch itself back together at a molecular level but at a speed that Cloud could see it happening. It must have been doing the same thing inside of the wound that it was doing on the outside because Tifa’s shallow breathing steadied and became stronger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The relief that coursed through Cloud knowing she wasn’t in pain anymore was tremendous. But they weren’t in the clear yet. They still needed to get clear of the reactor. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud’s eyes went to the metal doors that Zack had gone through after Sephiroth. How long ago had he gone? No more than a few minutes though it felt a lot longer than that. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa had stabilized and Cloud was tempted to wait for the SOLDIER. There was no back exit for anyone to leave by, this is the way they’d have to come. But which SOLDIER would Cloud be waiting for?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn’t risk meeting Sephiroth. Tifa especially couldn’t risk it. It was time to go. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sliding his arms under Tifa, he scooped her up as gently as he could and headed back the way they’d all originally come.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Chapter 23</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>If Zack thought he didn’t have a plan before, that was proven for sure as soon as he was forced to draw his sword against Sephiroth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This was the star of the SOLDIER program. A man who had slaughtered his way to victory in multiple wars. The man that was the sick and twisted science experiment of Shinra to create a perfect weapon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he was one. Without a doubt Shinra achieved their goal with Sephiroth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack was outpaced and outmaneuvered within seconds. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t want it to come to this Zack,” Sephiroth said as calmly as if he and Zack were having a coffee together and not hacking at each other with swords. “I have come to care for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then just stop this!” Zack shouted back at him as he took another step backwards. He was being forced further and further backwards as he stayed on constant defence. “You don’t have to do this for Shinra!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For Shinra?” Sephiroth paused in his relentless onslaught to laugh. “This isn’t about Shinra.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then why-” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth lunged at him again. Zack wasn’t going to get any answers. If he didn’t think of something - anything - to help him against Sephiroth soon, he wasn’t going to get any mercy either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth was continuing to force him backwards. They were on a platform above a deep drop into giant pipes and a thousand tangled wires. Only a few more steps before Zack would be plummeting downwards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth flicked his sword in an upwards backhanded slash, intending to catch Zack off guard and cut open his throat in one fell swoop. It would have too if Zack hadn’t studied Sephiroth’s technique in a bid to make his own better. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Angeal taught you well.” Sephiroth remarked cooly. “Too bad for you that I furthered my technique since he left!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth took another slash at Zack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack avoided it again. But only just. A deep cut on his arm opened up from his elbow to his shoulder. Sephiroth smiled when he saw the blood glistening on the end of his sword.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What was Zack going to do? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth had killed three people - one of them a civilian - and Zack knew he should be fighting him for that. It was up to SOLDIERs to protect innocent people...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wasn’t it?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After what Zack had seen in the Shinra mansion, and then Sephiroth himself confirmed, the SOLDIER program wasn’t looking like anything good anymore. It was, in fact, looking like something, very, very bad hidden behind Shinra’s vast propaganda machine.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>This revelation wasn’t answering Zack’s original question though. What was he going to </span>
  <em>
    <span>do</span>
  </em>
  <span>? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fight Sephiroth to the death? More than likely </span>
  <em>
    <span>his own death</span>
  </em>
  <span>? It’s not like he was going to have any other choice: he wasn’t going to be able to talk Sephiroth down from the crazy hill he’d climbed to the top of!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sephiroth swung his sword again: it was a mirror attack of the one that had sliced open Zack’s right arm. Zack brought his Buster sword down to block Sephiroth’s upwards swinging sword and not only saved his own neck, but figured out what he was going to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The blade of the Buster sword punctured an overhead pipe. Sephiroth’s sword had been haphazardly cutting through thin pipes and cords but the heftier Buster sword had cleaved a heftier pipe and the two SOLDIERs were suddenly enveloped in a thick blanket of steam. It was perfect cover for Zack’s plan.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leaving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wasn’t going to stay and die for Shinra. That was another lesson that Angeal had taught him with his own hasty departure from the Shinra ranks, though Zack hadn’t considered it an option before this very moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, better late than never when learning certain lessons. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack turned on his heels and made a break for the exit. </span>
</p><hr/><p>
  <span>Cloud had made it through the reactor without delay. But when he emerged from the reactor’s front door, he was shocked to find it was dark outside. But not dark like the sun had set. It was smoke. Dark, thick, acrid smoke, reaching skyward in a column to cover the sun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was Nibelheim. There was no doubt in Cloud’s mind that the town was burning. But how? What were the SOLDIERs doing in the reactor? Had there been an explosion? A deliberate attack?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His legs were suddenly shaky, and he stumbled a step backwards. And then another. And another. Until he was back in the reactor, between the outer most door and the inner blast door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nibelheim was on fire. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Destroyed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just outside the door, his hometown gone… his mother… was she </span>
  <em>
    <span>dead</span>
  </em>
  <span>? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud leaned backwards. He needed to take the weight off his feet… catch his breath… Then he’d be prepared to think about Nibelheim and save Tifa and everything else that he suddenly needed to cope with. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He expected to feel the inner blast door behind him, but he didn’t come in contact with the metal he was expecting. He leaned into someone that was looking to exit the reactor. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And when Cloud wasn’t immediately impaled on a sword, it was clear it was Zack.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good, you’re here!” The SOLDIER exclaimed as he rushed around the front of Cloud to look him up and down. “And you’re okay!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Are you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A little beat up but still standing. And Tifa’s still alive too, look at us absolutely winning! Let’s get the hell out of here before our hot strike ends!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zack… Nibelheim…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What about it…” The question trailed off as he pushed through the door and into the smoke. He stood staring off into the billowing smoke for a moment before he returned to the reactor’s foyar. “Sephiroth must have severed something important while we were fighting... The town is sitting right on top of mako lines, every appliance hooked up to it to draw power must have exploded.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’ll we do?” Cloud’s chin trembled as he asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know. We’ve gotta get back down the mountain anyways… let’s just get to that point, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack put his hands on Cloud’s shoulders to steady him. It helped. The SOLDIER must have seen it in his eyes because he took off down the stairs. Cloud followed, albeit a little slower since Tifa was still limp in his arms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Zack, what happened with Sephiroth?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t want to know. At least not yet. Let’s get away from him and I’ll explain everything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get away from him? Is he still alive?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, but he’s not following after me so that’s another win!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shouldn’t you deal with him?” There was anger in Cloud’s voice: why wouldn’t there be? Sephiroth should pay with his life for what he did to Tifa and her father and all of Nibelheim! “You’re a SOLDIER, aren’t you?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack reached the car and turned back to face Cloud. “What he’s doing in there, kid... I’m not going to be the one that handles it, SOLDIER or not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud stumbled off the last stair and moved towards the car. “But… the whole SOLDIER program, and Shinra-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck ‘em!” Zack exclaimed as he yanked open the back door of the car and hustled Cloud and the still unconscious Tifa into the backseat. “They don’t pay me enough for this! They’ll be here themselves soon enough anyways. There’s no way what Sephiroth’s done hasn’t set off every damn alarm they have!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are we waiting for them to get here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck no!” Zack shouted as he climbed behind the steering wheel. “We’re leaving and we’re not looking back.” Zack held out his hand for the keys Cloud still had. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Leaving Shinra?” Cloud stammered as he placed the car keys in Zack’s palm. “Like… deserting?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I prefer the term </span>
  <em>
    <span>early retirement</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack smashed his fist into the car horn, blaring it loudly for a solid few seconds. “I can leave you here to wait for them if you want, but there’s no way they’d leave you alive to talk about it, kid! So just shut up, alright?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were both angry. Really angry. But the difference in their anger was that Cloud wanted a self-righteous revenge and Zack was scared. Terrified. He just wanted to survive because he saw somewhere in this situation the possibility that he wouldn’t. Or that Cloud wouldn’t, or Tifa. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alright… let’s go.” Cloud said as he sat back and collected Tifa onto his lap. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack cranked the key in the ignition and they took off down the mountain at the same perilous clip that they had ascended it at.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0024"><h2>24. Chapter 24</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Despite tearing down the mountain even faster than they’d gone up it, Nibelheim was gone by the time they reached the foothills of the mountain. Completely burnt down from a fire that must have blazed white hot for just a few minutes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tifa let out a weak scream when she saw it. Cloud wished she had stayed unconscious but a bad bump on the mountain trail had sent him bouncing upwards and Tifa bouncing out of his arms. Her eyes had stayed open after that, though they were a little unfocused. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were focused now as she took in the horrific scene outside the car.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everything’s… gone…” Cloud muttered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Every house was flattened. Every business a burnt out shell. The only thing still standing was the water tower. Far enough away from any other buildings and not connected to a mako line, it stood resolute in the centre of town, or the charred husks and ashes that used to be a town. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There were no townsfolk to be seen. No one milling through the ashes, no one crying or screaming. It was completely silent. Empty. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t believe this…” Tifa whispered in disbelief. She clutched at Cloud tighter and tighter each skeleton of a house or business Zack rolled the car past. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want to go to your house, Cloud?” Zack asked quietly as he brought the car to a slow stop. They sat in the shadow of the ash darkened water tower. “Your mom… I mean, maybe she’s-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.” Cloud cut off Zack’s question. He wasn’t going to entertain the improbable hope that his mother could have survived this. The sun was setting and Cloud knew his mother would have been in the kitchen making an evening cup of tea. If every appliance drawing power from the mako lines exploded… “Don’t bother. She… she won’t be there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then… I guess… we’ll go?” Zack asked from the front seat. He was the one sitting behind the steering wheel, why was he asking anyone?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud saw Zack’s face in the rearview mirror and saw that the SOLDIER’s mako eyes were glassy with tears. Zack might have been a highly trained officer at the top of Shinra’s military hierarchy, but he was way out of his element with what had happened here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Did he want to stay and try and help? To dig through the ashes with his bare hands to look for survivors? Was he holding out hope? Trying not to blame himself? Looking for anyone to say anything to him, because now that he had stopped and looked around himself, he realized he didn’t know what the hell he was doing?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. Let’s go,” Cloud said with a definitive, end of story tone. With Zack at a loss and Tifa clinging to him like driftwood in the open ocean, he’d be the one to say it. Besides, he was an old hand at leaving Nibelheim behind. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Chapter 25</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Cloud had put on a tough exterior to hasten their departure from Nibelheim, and he had thought that the more distance that he put between the town and himself, the tougher that exterior would become. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That’s what he’d thought when he first left Nibelheim to go join Shinra too. It hadn’t been the case then and it wasn’t the case now. The hard shell was going to crack. And it wasn’t going to take much. A look from Zack maybe. Or if he let his guard down and a memory of his mother slipped into his mind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, it was Tifa that did it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had pushed herself up with what little strength she had regained and sat looking through the back window, watching the town until it disappeared on the horizon behind them. When she could no longer see it, she slumped against Cloud with a heavy sigh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t believe Nibelheim is gone…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” Cloud replied lamely, unable to think of anything else to say. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And your mother,” she said as she took her head off his shoulder to look him directly in his eyes. “I’m so sorry about your mother, Cloud.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry about your dad, Tifa,” Cloud whispered back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It took no more than a solitary look into Tifa’s big, brown eyes for Cloud’s eyes to fill with tears, though it was Tifa who let her tears fall first. Clutching Cloud’s shirt tightly in her hands, burying her face into it, she wept, her tears leaving wet patches as they fell. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once Tifa started crying, Cloud couldn't hope to hold his own tears back. He wrapped his arms around her, clinging to her as she clung to his shirt. They sobbed quietly into each other. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack glanced into the rearview mirror. He’d done it over and over again as Nibelheim faded into the distance: it was a tragedy that had to be witnessed. A new tragedy played out for him from the kids. Their sorrow cut through Zack’s core like Sephiroth’s sword had cut through his arm. He considered saying something to console them but ultimately stayed quiet. It wasn't his grief to be a part of. It was their grief, their catastrophe, and having each other through it would lessen it more than any empty words of his could.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack stared straight ahead into the setting sun and put his foot down harder on the accelerator, moving the old Shinra truck faster and faster towards no target or goal that he could think of.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But maybe if he got it moving fast enough, he could outpace the misery that trailed behind them.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0026"><h2>26. Chapter 26</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Time was passing. The landscape passing by them stayed mostly the same but time was passing because the sun had completely set. Zack was glad to get the sun out of his eyes as he drove due west into it. Too bright. And hot. He’d been cursing it since he’d pulled onto this desolate strip of road hours ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had rolled the windows down earlier, cranking his down and then leaning across the empty passenger seat to roll down the other one. It was October first but it was still as hot as high summer and the car was stifling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud felt the heat acutely with Tifa curled up on his lap, her arms wrapped around his neck as she slept. She had cried long and hard in his arms and then passed out. Cloud hadn’t moved a muscle since she’d fallen asleep. Her comfort meant more to him than his own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe he should go to sleep too. He was exhausted right down to his bones. Sleep would do him good. And Zack wasn’t exactly talkative. At least he wasn’t until the thought of sleep crossed Cloud’s mind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh shit!” He cursed from the front.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Cloud asked as he moved for the first time in a long time, pushing himself up enough to see what Zack was seeing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coming quickly into view from the other direction was a big collection of trucks. Military trucks. And only one military would be interested in coming this way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shinra?” Cloud asked as he caught Zack’s eyes in the rearview mirror.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who else? Keep your head down, okay kid? Try not to make direct eye contact with anyone,” Zack directed as he wrenched the sun visor down and to the side so his own face was a little more obscured from the headlights that would soon be bearing down on the car.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The convoy of trucks rumbled the road more and more the closer they got. Everything in the car rattled and shook. Cloud shook too, scared of what was bearing down on them. He was on the wrong side of Shinra now; this is what opposing forces must feel as Shinra sped towards them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Told you they’d be on their way,” Zack muttered as they passed the first truck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Shinra convoy rolled past, truck after truck after truck of who knew what. More MPs? More SOLDIERs? Hazard cleanup materials? War machines? Cloud had never heard of a mako emergency, he definitely didn’t know what the process of cleaning it up would be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zack was determinedly trying to keep his eyes forward in an ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>I can’t see them they can’t see me</span>
  </em>
  <span>’ sort of fashion, but the truck at the very end of the convoy caught his eye. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You see that red headed guy hanging off the back of that truck?” He said with a jerk of his head in the direction of the convoy. </span>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud craned his neck around to find who Zack was talking about. “The one that looks way too excited to be headed towards a disaster?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s the one. He’s a Turk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s a Turk?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A secret branch of Shinra’s vast network of professional sociopaths. They work internally, right under President Shinra. They clean up messes - the messiest of the messes. And they’re all really good at their jobs. Shit, I can just see it now. Shinra is going to cover all this up, just like they did when Angeal left. They’ll make it look like something else. If Sephiroth is still alive, they’re going to sedate him and keep him in a tube until they can figure out what to do with him. And the Turks… well, if we had stayed, that redheaded guy would have </span>
  <em>
    <span>cleaned </span>
  </em>
  <span>us up like any other mess. Hell, he still might if Shinra has any reason to believe we’re still alive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you saying Shinra will hunt us down?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll be honest with you kid, they probably won’t care much about you. I’m a little higher of a risk because rogue SOLDIERs can cause a lot of destruction.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, no shit,” Cloud muttered back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But it’s Tifa that’s going to be in the most danger.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shinra can keep its own quiet, but civilians are a different story. If Tifa told the right person what happened at Nibelheim it could be a full-blown rebellion. If Shinra is going to come after us, Tifa is the first they’ll try to get rid of.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s see them fucking try,” Cloud growled as he protectively wrapped his arms tighter around sleeping Tifa. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>will</span>
  </em>
  <span> kill anyone that ever tries to hurt her again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s the spirit,” Zack said with a smile, though it was a sad smile. Cloud had changed so much in such a short amount of time. Going from nervous to talk to the girl to vowing to kill anyone that hurts the girl.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was a transformation brought on by sadness and pain, but Zack knew it wasn’t going to stay that way. Tifa was going to be the best thing that ever happened to Cloud, a sad beginning or not. He was so glad they had each other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what do we do now?” Cloud asked as the last rumblings of Shinra disappeared in the distance and they were relatively safe once again.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re going back to Midgar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you kidding?” Cloud scoffed. “After everything you just said about Shinra, you’re going to take us right into the </span>
  <em>
    <span>heart </span>
  </em>
  <span>of Shinra?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure, why not? We’re driving straight at it and Midgar is a big place. They don't patrol the slums as thoroughly as they should.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Under the plates?” It had just been last night that Cloud had told Tifa how dismal life was under the plates and here they were headed straight there. “But where are we supposed to live? What will we do?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hear merc work pays well. We'll do that. And I know a girl that can help us out. She’ll put us up in her flower patch. Just don't fall through her roof and smash them up, she hates that.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Under the plates in a patch of flowers. No gil. Possibly wanted as enemies of the state. There were a million things that Cloud could have asked - should have asked. But he didn’t. He was just too tired.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Hours more passed. Cloud drifted close to sleep but never fell into it. Tifa stayed asleep though. He was glad for that. And even though Zack was quiet, a radio station started coming in the closer they got to Midgar. He concentrated on the sounds of that to pass the time until Midgar itself appeared on the horizon, glowing from the neon signs and the mako that powered them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tifa said just the other night that she wanted to come back to Midgar with me.” Cloud remarked without prompt as he looked ahead to the twinkling city. “Guess she’s getting her wish, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“On terrible terms,” Zack said with a sigh as he caught Cloud’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Hey,” he said when Cloud looked away but the moment didn’t feel complete yet. “You okay, kid?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud shook his head no, the sadness of earlier passing over his face again. Tifa was still curled up in his lap, the blood from her wound dark and crusty on her clothing. Cloud had started absentmindedly stroking her dark hair just a little while ago, a look in his eyes that could mean a million things and none of them good. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kids were currently not alright.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you </span>
  <em>
    <span>gonna </span>
  </em>
  <span>be alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cloud thought about his answer to this question longer than he had the last one. It would have been easy for Cloud to think he’d never be alright again after what happened in Nibelheim. And what could </span>
  <em>
    <span>still </span>
  </em>
  <span>happen </span>
  <em>
    <span>because </span>
  </em>
  <span>of Nibelheim. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But as Midgar appeared on the horizon and Tifa breathed deep and steady in his arms, he knew he would be alright.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah. I will be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Atta boy,” Zack with a smile as he dropped his eyes back to the road in front of them. Yup. That was what he wanted to hear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kids were gonna be alright.</span>
</p>
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